I’m a big fan of accessories, in fact I like to refer to my residence as the Radio Shack of camera related gadgets. Some of my favorite items are the ones from Peak Design. The company has come out with the Capture Clip, Leash and Cuff, both of which I have reviewed.
The guys over at Peak Design have listened to our feedback on their original Capture Plates and later last year they came out with a new revision including a smaller version. Here’s a quick look at the recently revamped plates.
Design Changes of the Capture Plate
Every side of the new capture clip has been changed from the top to the bottom and side to side. Starting at the top you will notice that the new plate has a red hard plastic / rubber grip where the old one has neoprene. The old neoprene pad was glued onto the plate and would slip after a period of time, this is something that I had mentioned in my original review. The red plastic on the new plate actually rests inside it’s own machined cut out area. When tightened the plastic actually molds to the bottom of your camera and holds a much tighter connection. This has been proven from my experience with the new plate.
My biggest complaint with the old plate was the flathead required to fasten it to a camera. Peak Design introduced a D-ring crank type of fastener on the new plate. This means you can hand tighten it whenever you’d like without a tool. I only have a small complaint with the new D-ring and that it’s a bit hard to grab with your fingers. After a bit of prying you’ll eventually get it, with the new molded plastic top it generally needed less tightening than before. You can see in the photo above that the old plate has gotten a bit shredded due from tightening. The old plate actually has a 1/4” socket at the bottom for attaching a different tripod mount to it. Although it was useful I’ve been more productive by just switching all of my tripod heads to the Arca-swiss standard.
The sides of the plate has changed and it’s new geometry “allows a more forgiving entry into the capture clip”. Besides the actual shape changes the plate has also changed from a powder coated surfaced to one that’s anodized. This also helps loading the plate as smooth as possible, especially in cold weather. Peak Design says that these two fixes completely eliminate intermittent jamming issues.
Microplate
The Microplate was born because of the strong demand these days for the smaller mirrorless cameras. The Microplates width fits smaller cameras like my Nikon V1 pictured above as well as the popular cameras from Fuji, Panasonic, Sony and Olympus. It may be obvious but I should let you know that the micro plate can only slide into the capture system on two sides, not four like the normal sized plates. Since these cameras are much lighter I’ve had less issues with cameras becoming loose.
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