From Desmond.
One of the things which irritated me about the otherwise excellent Surui K-40X ball head for my old Linhof tripod was that the Arca plates for additional cameras (it comes with one) were overpriced at over $40 each.
I needed additional plates for my 350mm and 500mm Nikkors, each with lens mounted tripod fixtures, a clamp for my Manfrotto monopod, and a small plate for the Pansonic GX7, and was not about to be hosed down for overpriced pieces of alloy with simple, machined v-notches.
Shopping Amazon I chanced on the Desmond brand of knock-offs (a knock-off of a knock-off) at Amazon and proceeded to order the following:
The first two are for the Nikon D2x and the 350mm Nikkor. Hullo! $6.50 each! (The 500mm Reflex Nikkor already has an original, overpriced, $40+ Surui). The second row is for an Arca-compatible clamp for my monopod which sports an old Leitz ball & socket head (superb!), replacing the previous Manfrotto QR plate. And the last is for the GX7, a very small plate for a very small body.
The full-sized plate for the Nikon D3x/D2x
The clamp for the Leitz B&S head. Comes with a 3/8″ to 1/4″ reducer.
The camera plate for the Panasonic GX7.
All the plates come with a D-ring for the retaining screw as well as a generously sized slot which will accept a variety of coins for torquing down.
Reactions? All fit fine. The safety locking slot/button on the stock Surui clamp works perfectly.
And the lot costs about as much as one Surui ‘original’ knock-off. In fact I like the big camera plate so much I have replaced the Surui on my D3x with the Desmond, relegating the Surui plate to the less used D2x. Life is too short for all that screwing ….
On the Nikon D2x.
On the 300mm Nikkor.
On the Panny GX7 – small enough to be left in place.
The battery/SD card remain accessible, but
you can no longer flip up the LCD.
The Desmond plates have a 0.48″ wide dovetail at the broadest point, compared with 0.53″ for the Surui. This means that fewer turns are needed on the unlocking clamp on the ball head to release the camera – 0.75 turns of the locking knob for the Desmond compared with 2.75 turns for the Surui plate. Nice.
Nicely made and dirt cheap, what’s not to like?