Get A Grip Week - Day Three - Fujifilm Boxes On

Retro is as retro does - and if that isn't as fatuous a statement as you are likely to read in a camera column...read on. It gets worse.

Fujifilm struck a real chord with the digital camera-buying public a few years ago when they brought out a retro camera. It's not rude to say that - the Fujifilm X-100 series of cameras have been deliberately styled to look and feel like cameras from the film era. Those of us who used film cameras can relate pretty nearly instantly to them as far as ergonomics go.

We get to touch a shutter speed dial, an aperture ring, and a focusing ring. We get a mechanical shutter button - They're even retro enough to take a mechanical cable release. We get an optical viewfinder, an electronic viewfinder, and an LCD live screen.

But we also get a pretty small and somewhat slippery camera body. I won't say that it is likely to squirt out of your fingers like a buttered squid, but you need to have your digits in the right place to operate it. If they are big sausage fingers you can be fighting for space. Enter the X-100 series grip:

It's a chunky monkey all right, with enough hand grip to allow to to pretty well let go of the camera with the left hand for good. The camera has got a fixed lens that is very compact. Even with an additional lens hood or filter holder, it is never going to overpower your right wrist like a long zoom would. If you are the sort of shooter who favours a wrist strap instead of a neck strap, this is the ideal way to secure the camera.

Note that it is cut out for card/battery replacement without being disturbed, and the bottom of the grip incorporates an Arca-Swiss rail fitting.

Now suppose you have decided to get the newest of the Fujifilm cameras - the X-T2. Can you be accommodated? You can:

Here the emphasis is on practicality rather than just accessorising for the sake of spending money in a camera shop (not that we discourage this...). The 18-135, 55-200, and 50-140 lenses are all substantial devices - they contain a great deal of heavy glass. They can twist a camera out of your right hand very easily, and it is awkward. This grip strengthens your chances. I also noted that the 1/4" screw was captive on a C-clip, though the battery door is accessible and the X-T2 has the card door on the side of the body anyway.

Please note that there are grips for the X-T1 and the X-E1 and 2 series as well.

See the Fujifilm MHG-XT2 Metal Hand Grip on our online store here.

Only A Few Of Them Get It...

Looking around at the tripod heads in the shop it occurred to me that only two of the manufacturers really get it - they are aiming themselves at the big end of the market - by the smallest means.

Consider - when we put an image up on the computer screen in, say, Photoshop, we get the option to select something and move it in infinitesimal increments by using up down and sideways keys. We can't achieve the same degree of precision with trackpads, tablets, or mice and the computer people know it - so we get the electronic equivalent of a fine-tune control.

We also can't achieve the fine control of cameras that we need on conventonal tripod heads - if we are working with a ball head it falls all over the place as soon as we loosen it - even the three-way heads are crude pivots when we need fine movement.

Arca-Swiss and Manfrotto addressed this in their separate ways by putting mechanical creepers on their cube head and the 405 three-way head. In each case there is a crude se-up adjustment comparable to mousing over something and then you can use geared knobs to fine tune the position.

They are intended for use with big studio cameras but wise small-camera users will also see the usefulness. Big fingers need help with small controls.

Manfrotto Changeover - It Suits The Swiss

There are a dozen camera quick-release mounting plates in use today - but fortunately the main manufacturers and their industrial copycats have settled upon a few as standards.

One notable one is the Manrotto rectangular PL200 plate - most bigger Manfrotto consumer tripods use this as the connection and it is a very good one. Another form is the Arca-Swiss plate used by that company, 3LT, Cullmann, and any number of other copyists. Unfortunately the Manfrotto rarely goes to Arca-Swiss.

Until now. This black casting with the bubble levels and large locking knob is the Manfrotto MSQ6 - it goes onto a Manfrotto ball head in place of the standard PL200 mount and allows you to use all the Arca-Swiss mounts. There is a safety pin to prevent untoward movement of the plate and you can twist it tight onto the receiver. It will hold immense weights.

An " L " Of A Good Idea

We recently added a range of " L's " to our shop. Users of some Sony, Canon, and Nikon cameras will benefit - particularly if he want to do landscape or studio shots. Or both together*.

The "l's " are cast metal brackets that fit onto specific camera models to allow them to have an Arca-Swiss mont on the bottom. and the unique feature of these is that you can have the same mount out to the side.

We've seen somewhat similar things from some on-line merchants - but they are generally solid castings without the adjustable features of these.

The ProMediaGear bracket you see here is cast for the Nikon D7100 camera. The twin steel rails allow the side mount to be placed further from the side of the camera - in case you wish a higher viewpoint for the portrait orientation. This also allows those people who use the side mount as a way of slinging large flash units to move them away from the lens axis. Once you find out where you want to go, you tighten up the screws.

Note that the upright casting has a hole in it and a samarium magnet to hold an Allen wrench so that you can unfasten the things.

There are numerous 1/4" tapped holes here and there to sling other things.

Altogether a well-made and intriguing product.

* I do. Making mountains is fun.

French Head - Arca-Swiss d4m

I have no idea. Perhaps the Arca company was originally Swiss and now they are French. Whatever the explanation, the pan and tilt head pictured here is a gem.

Don't be fooled by first looks - that is a pan and tilt rather than a ball head  ( which they also make...) in a compact and precise form. It is also a panorama head.

The pano section is the top layer. It has an Arca mount, of course and this is one with a quick-release lever. It spins around freely with degree markings and an reference pin
 there are two bubble levels at 90º to each other to facilitate levelling this part for the panorama.

Below this the tilt mechanism allows for straightening of horizons and has a very positive lock. The stem casting is a good 1cm x 1.5 cm of metal and should cope with the largest of cameras and lenses.

Mind you, this is nothing compared to the size of he cast metal barrel below this that lets the assembly tilt. - it all sits in a cradle rather reminiscent of a gun mount or an astronomical mount. Under the lot is a second turntable for 360º movement. Standard 3/8" screw socket.

For whom is this head intended? I should say landscape shooters who have the largest and most complex DSLRs  - the 50 megapixel types - that have a certain weight and need very precise movements. Or studio workers with the same sort of high-end equipment.

Or people who just love precision machines.

Arca Swiss Cube Tripod Head

They're baaaaack.....

 To see where...

The Quick Release Plate - A Guide For the Perplexed

Every single week that I have worked here we have had someone come in looking for a quick-release plate to match their tripod - they have lost the original one or have added more lenses and bodies to their bag and need to connect to the tripod.

Nearly every single week someone has had a sobering experience - the quick release plate that fits their tripod is long gone and their tripod is irredeemably bare on top...

The manufacturers of tripods all seem to have gone their own way when it comes to quick release plates and the associated clamps on the top of the tripod. I have drawn up a list of at least a dozen well-known ones and there must be even more of the budget and house-brand ones that have come and gone in the last two decades. None of them fit anything else.

Some are well-built and 'universal' enough ( read knocked-off...) to be something that we can supply. Manfrotto, Arca-Swiss, and Cullmann come to mind. You need one, we got 'em.

Some were chips that passed in the night, and even our legendary cardboard box o' junk is running low on suitable replacements. In some cases you can modify a standard block with saw and file, but sometimes nothing will ever fit. Bunnings sells wood blocks, chisels, and 1/4" flathead screws if you are feeling adventurous....

Far better to just admit that the dear old Jessops or Sears tripod is cactus and get a small INCA or Velbon for $ 50...or get a decent Cullmann or Manfrotto and start afresh. Even if you decide to get a lesser-known brand you are likely to get a block now that is of Arca-Swiss size, and you can go away with a handful of extra blocks in anticipation of losing a few.

Arca Swiss - This Is One Big Cheese!

And no holes in it, either!

The Arca Swiss company is famous for letting it all hang out - in this case in about 4 directions at the same time*. Studio photographers will immediately recognise the way this Arca Swiss C1 cube has been set up - the fore and aft Sheimpflug modulated tilt/shift toggle beam position. As used to render advertising images for sock manufacturers...

Precision is a hard thing to come by in some areas of photography - pet photography  and wedding shooters will know what we mean if they reflect on it while hosing out their studios. They are more or less shooting it on the wing and the best chance they have of success is to lead the target and trust to proximity fuses. Studio product and scientific shooting is another story.

If the object that you are picturing does not breathe it can generally be persuaded not to move. And then you can position yourself and your camera in such a way as to show all the salient features of it in the best light. Whether it is the aforementioned socks, or cans of corn, or Mercedes cars, the light is controllable and the angle of the lens is too. In some cases the movement of the camera needs to be very small to produce a great difference in the optical rendering.

Arca Swiss do make that precision possible, for all I make fun of them. The heading image is taken in the tradition of all large-format manufacturers - the extremes of each movement are shown, with the tacit understanding that you never actually do that. You move little bits very precisely - and sometimes you need to move a couple of them at the same time. That's where the micro-drive geared adjustments, the friction gripper, and the scales come in.

It's all metal in there, folks, and it costs a lot, and if you are a studio that deals in science or advertising art, this is a device well worth considering. They're hand made in Switzerland and well worth the wait.

* The Swiss are well-known comedy scamps...

The Swiss Pagoda

The object in the heading image is not a refugee from a Transformers movie. Nor is it  the main mast from a Japanese battleship. It is a European tripod head that is constructed in the grand tradition of trying too hard to go too far.

Those of you who remember the advertisements for large format cameras made in Europe will recognise the principle. Make a piece of mechanics hinge upon itself in 14 different ways and then bend them all on for the publicity shot. Never mind that you only ever move the thing in very small increments in the studio or out in the field - it is a game of advertising excess to compete with other machine shops.

Notwithstanding the above, this is a superb tripod head. It tilts, pans, swivels, and then twirls around for panoramic pictures. It clamps onto Arca mounts...not surprising because it is made by Arca Swiss. It is terrifyingly adjustable for friction and position. First-time users will be lost in a minute and even old hands will spend time over-correcting themselves.

It is possibly the most precise head generally available and would suit everything from a mirrorless to a monorail. Indeed, with a fully-configured monorail large format camera the photographer would not even need to use film or make any exposures - their entire studio time could be devoted to adjusting the movements until their subject died, rusted, or blew away.

More practical landscape workers could eliminate the wretched ball head and substitute this for far more control - it would make sunsets mellower and rocky shores more rocky...

Cubists Of The World - Unite! You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Ballheads!

At long last the Arca Swiss Cube has arrived and we can throw away our ancient three-way heads that have been sitting on the studio tripod since Fox Talbot was a kitten. This device has been advertised on our window for months...with never a sniff of the real thing. Well, the real thing is here and it is wonderful.

Please note that I am not restricting the sales pitch to studio shooters; landscapists, architectural photographers, and panoramicists will also benefit from this piece of gear. It is simply the most precise way to orientate a still camera on the top of a tripod that I have seen.

I use a Gitzo tripod in the studio - it has either a Linhof pan and tilt mounting or a Gitzo 3-way head on the top, but neither of these alternatives come close to the Arca Swiss.

The Cube has precise rack control of two axes, and a positive lock mechanism for tilt. It has variable pressure for the knob controls, so that you can match the effort needed to move the camera with the weight of it. It has a precise panorama turntable at the top of the totem pole...so you can level everything before you spin around in the pano shot.

It is well-built. The Swiss are like that. Their cheese may have holes in it but their camera gear is pretty solid!

Switzerland - Head Of The Valley

Some people chose the best because they actually need it and some choose the best because they have a big sack of money. Most times it ain't the same person...

If you fit either class, consider the Arca Swiss head on this blog. It would be rotten to do sport with and rotten to do portraits with...but it is the world's best for panoramas. If you are into horizontal stitching and can determine your camera/lens nodal point, you can make this head spin on the vertical axis with a precision that will astound you.

It copes with the tripod being on uneven ground by the simple expedient of keeping the ball under the tyrntable. Do what you like with the legs under it, once you level the camera and check it with a spirit level you can spin round for a perfect horizon. Your stitching program will cope much better.

That is an Arca-Swiss mount on the top, of course, so it will match lots of the ...ahem... oriental copycat manufacturer's tripod plates. Let them fight it out amongst themselves in the mountains...

The Best of the Best, Arca Swiss C1 Cube Geared Head

Camera Electronic is the official distributor of Arca Swiss products in Australia and we are pleased to introduce you to one of the latest additions to the range of camera support solutions that Arca offer.  The C1 Cube is testament to Arca's never ending pursuit of the ultimate pinnacle of functionality, design and engineering. 

"Designed for a realm where functionality trumps all concerns.  The head allows users to place their heavy cameras with a degree of accuracy they could never have had before except in exchange for a large increase in weight.  There are still plenty of shooters around wishing to actually travel with their best stuff, and no geared head seemed practical to endure on one's person before the C1 arrived.

The C1 Cube has finely calibrated ungeared panning adjustments under and above ±28° x-y geared axes with adjustable tension.  Why two panoramic axes?  So that you can first center the Cube's controls to your position with the bottom axis, then readjust the camera to point dead ahead with the upper axis.  The gears' knobs have a little scrap of rubber running around them, to give pinpoint control while wearing gloves without being broad enough to obstruct the head's movements.  On the bottom of it all, there's a third (ungeared) hinge which allows 62° of tilt so that any camera can reach the 90° vertical position.
On top of the C1 you'll find 2 sensitive bubble levels and an Arca-Swiss flip-lock quick release clamp which has its own advantages in compactness and security.  Given all that's going on here, the weight's astonishingly low; just 925 grams, as light as could be imagined and considerably more compact than other geared heads.


The C1's ultimate advantage lies in the world of macro shooting, where its design allows far fewer focusing readjustments while creating images.  You see, all other geared heads (and all other 3-way pan/tilt heads for that matter) execute movements upon circular axes which are centered far below the actual camera-your gear moves along the outside of a sphere.  The C1 Cube, however, places the camera inside of a sphere.  It is almost as if the x/y axes meet at a point upon the image plane itself, with all the camera rotating around a stationary image plane.  This remarkably difficult engineering feat was chosen to minimize movements of the optical system's entrance pupil during composing, making for speedier field work free of perpetual height and focus adjustments.


This version of the C1 Cube is delivered with a gorgeous, handcrafted leather case with permanently-attached shoulder strap."