- The first piece of equipment we mentioned
into solving this problem was the L-bracket,
and that's gonna allow us to easily convert the camera
from being in a landscape position to a portrait position,
and the goal is that it's rock solid in either place.
Now Ron, these are available sort of two styles,
one is a generic one,
and you'll find these much more affordably
that could fit on any camera,
and these are typically simply designed
to attach to the camera.
There's a lot of manufacturers that make these,
and you screw it on, and it basically gives you
an L-shaped Arca-Swiss plate
that gives you both mounting points.
The problem with these more generic ones though,
is that some of the specifics are hard to get to.
Like here on my Sony A7R, I've got access here,
I could still pull these open to get to my ports
without having to remove this bracket.
I could still open up the door here for the grip,
and pop out the batteries
without having to remove the L-bracket.
So it gets a little tricky, right,
if you want to have full functionality.
- The really modern ones they've thought through
all the details for each camera.
This has openings to reach those ports.
So does mine and on a completely different camera
but they're still spaced to open up the doors.
The generic ones also might not be quite as form-fitting
to the camera, where these are so solid
I feel very confident about using them.
- What I find is that the generic ones while cheaper,
these are third party tools,
so they can't make these dedicated grips
until they actually get a hold of one of the cameras.
So if you're an early adopter
or you rent a lot of cameras, it's a good idea
to keep a generic L-bracket around.
This is one that I have here from one of my older Nikons,
and you see it's perfectly fit.
There's the hole there so I can access the ports,
here's a larger hole
where the battery grip could come through,
but in either case Arca-Swiss plate, Arca-Swiss plate,
and in this case, even the ability
to attach a camera strap to hang from my hip.
And that's the thing.
You don't actually have to remove these
to still be functional.
I could easily get access to the battery grip here,
remove batteries, I could easily access my ports,
and on the bottom I still have a thread.
So if I needed to just quickly take a tripod,
one of these mini tripods here, I could just thread that in,
or a Gorilla pod, a Platypod,
line that up and we'll just give it a quick spin.
There we go.
And I've got a simple shooting platform.
So it's really a matter of stepping up.
Now these of course vary in price,
but ballpark, what are we looking at,
and where are some places people can find these?
- Well these are a rather pricey item in my opinion.
It seems to be a pricey item for what you get,
until you use them.
They all, I believe they're all over $200,
probably over $250 for many of the new cameras.
And I think the main place to get them now
is Really Right Stuff,
and I've also purchased these from Kirk Photo as well.
They were available I think before.
But again I think they're very pricey,
but if you start using them
I think you'll appreciate them and be worth the investment.
- It all comes down to this.
When you're starting to attach the camera at unusual angles
and you're looking for a secure shooting platform,
it is a bit of money, but I don't know,
I think of it as a $200 or $250 seat belt, right?
This is what keeps your camera from falling to the ground.
- [Ron] I like them, they add a lot of size
to the body of the camera as well,
and this also goes for the smaller,
some of my mirror-less cameras, my little Olympus,
it's much smaller.
When I put that L-bracket on
it starts to feel more like a DSLR.
So maybe that's something to consider as well.
- Now I absolutely recommend this,
because this plate is going to make it very easy
to put that into a portrait ratio,
which is gonna make it simpler to shoot,
and as we start to take a look
at some of the other dedicated solutions
for attaching the camera,
having both a side and a bottom Arca-Swiss plate
is gonna make it very easy
to securely attach the camera to your rig.