RRS QR plate question

[Kermit Burroughs]

Anyone who is using the RRS plate they list for wood fields. It has 2 screws. Great idea, but...am I expected to drill a hole into the bottom of my nice wood camera? I realize I could, perhaps sink a nut in it as well, but I'm really not so inclined to do so.

What have others done?

Thanks

[Mark Stahlke]

My Tachihara has two tripod mounting holes from the factory. I put an RRS plate with two screws on the camera and I love it. No more twisting.

If your camera has only one hole I suggest getting a single screw plate or you could have your camera modified.

Cheers,
Mark

[Greg Lockrey]

Or you could use the second hole for a set screw.

[George Stewart]

You could just take one of the screws out. I mounted a RRS long rail on my 4x5 so that I could do some nodal point panoramic work.

[Rider]

I was concerned that the nice wood finish on my Wisner would be scratched or damaged by the metal QR plate (plus the RRS is really quite expensive).

So, I am on the lookout for a padded QR plate. Does anyone have a suggestion?

[Eric James]

Or you could use the second hole for a set screw.

I did this and regretted it. I purchased an anodized setscrew thinking that filling the extra hole would prevent crud from accumulating, but mostly because I had hoped that it would offer some added resistance from twisting. As it turned out, using the setscrew with lock-tite caused the plate to bend over time (almost a mm of camber over the length). If the setscrew is being set into wood, no problem - this happened on an Ebony and Ebony cameras have large titanium plates surrounding the tripod socket. In the battle between Ti and Al, Ti one.

One screw with lock-tite (blue) is enough - when fastened in this manner my RRS plate has not twisted.

[David A. Goldfarb]

You can simply remove one screw, if you don't need two. If you want padding, find some suitable tape or cork gasket material to fit between the plate and the camera. I got a B35 plate for my Korona 7x17" and got a second tripod socket, which I'm going to install so that I can use the camera for verticals without it twisting on the tripod head.

[Ted Harris]

You can also buy a variety of nicely machined generic plates that do exactly the same job. I have both generic plates and two Arca plates and for the life of me can't see any difference. It's a different story with clamps but plates are plates.

[Dave Parker]

It is very simple, you can remove one screw as has been mentioned, also if you want to pad a RSS plate, very simple, go to your local hobby shop and look for the bags of scrap leather they sell, normally there will be both hard leather as well as some softer pieces, a little bit of rubber cement and a razor blade, and you have a padded plate.

Dave

[JPlomley]

Kermit:

I just took delivery on the MPR-1 plate from RRS for the Ebony SV45TE. It comes with an anti-twist flange which you can install yourself, but with the Ebony this was not required since there are two tripod sockets spaced 61mm apart. With a 3/8 to 1/4 reducing bushing it was possible to use both sockets and the length of the plate gives me plenty of fore and aft movement to optimize my centre-of-mass as a function of bellows draw. You could check with RRS and see if they can send you a modified MPR-1 with just one screw if you feel the 6 inches of fore and aft latitude are required for your set-up, and then just install the anti-twist flange at the optimal position on the rail. For padding the interface between plate and camera, what about cork from an arts and crafts store. This is basically what manfrotto use on their plates...seems to work.