It used to be that the only way to attach your camera to a tripod was directly. For those who are not old enough to remember, it meant that there was no quick release plate. You would screw your camera directly onto the head. Eventually, someone came up with a quick release plate, a plate that you attach to your camera and then attach to the tripod. Pretty much everyone knows what this is today. This is a great idea because it means that you can quickly get in and out of your tripod. You just let the plate live on your camera and usually with just the flip of a lever, you can pop your camera right into that tripod. No fuss, no muss, right? Well, not so fast. Unfortunately, the manufacturers didn't talk to one another, and each came up with their own plate. So you couldn't go from one head to another without switching plates, because a different plate means a different locking mechanism. And since each plate was proprietary, it meant that if you lost your plate, you're going to pay a lot of money for a replacement plate. Although to some extent this is still the case, over the past 10 years I've been noticing a consolidation of plates to something called Arca Swiss. This is especially true in the medium to high end of the market. This plate was designed by a company called, well, Arca Swiss, and they made it open source so everyone could copy it. The plate is actually very well designed and the connection mechanism is pretty robust. And although it's been around a pretty long time, it feels like it wasn't until the last 10 years that manufacturers finally started to standardize on it. So now you can go from one tripod head manufacturer to another without switching plates. Having said this, I need to mention Peak Design. Although Peak has made their plates Arca-Swiss compatible, it should be noted that you cannot use most Arca-Swiss plates in the Peak system. Let me say that differently. You can use your Peak Design plates on any Arca-Swiss compatible system, but you cannot use any other Arca-Swiss plate with the Peak line of products. In other words, they still get to sell you more of their plates if you buy their stuff. Clever, right? Although it would seem that most tripod manufacturers have standardized on the Arca-Swiss plate, there is one huge holdout in the group, and that's Manfrotto. Manfrotto has been around for a very long time and in the last 30 years they also bought two of their very large competitors. One is Bogan and the other is Gizzo. Bogan was absorbed into Manfrotto and the brand no longer exists, but Gizzo was left to continue as Gizzo, and essentially it represents Manfrotto's high-end product line. At this point, it looks like almost all Gizzo heads have migrated to Arca Swiss, but this does not seem to be the case with Manfrotto.
More than 20 years ago, Manfrotto created the RC2 Quick Release Plate, and although a few years ago it looked like they were making the migration to Arca-Swiss, much of their new stuff still seems to be using the RC2 plate. The thing about Manfrotto is that they have such a large market share that they don't seem to care. Okay, now that you know about Quick Release Plates, why is this so important? Most people just own one tripod and one tripod head, right? Fundamentally, that's true. But the thing is, when you start expanding your photography, let's say you start shooting birds, and you need to expand to a monopod, or a gimbal, or something that sits on the ground like a platypod, suddenly this becomes an issue, because your head for those may be different than your tripod and require a different quick release plate. So you go from doing a night shoot on your tripod, and the next day you're out shooting birds on your monopod, but you forgot to change your plate, or better yet, you left the plate at home. This is a problem. The other issue is that I find that many people just buy whatever tripod just to get through that first shoot. And then a couple years down the line, when they decide they really like photography, they decide to buy a better tripod. And guess what? That plate thing, it doesn't match. The old tripod becomes a pain because it won't take the new plate and vice versa. But the thing is, the old tripod is not useless, so they still hang on to it. But because it's such a pain to go back and forth from plate to plate, well, you get the idea. Bottom line is that we really are down to two and a half different plates, Arca Swiss, Peak Design, and RC2. The upshot is both Peak and Manfrotto are making dual plates that will fit into the Manfrotto RC2 and Arca Swiss system. But of course, the Manfrotto plate won't work with the Peak stuff. One other thing is that you can often convert an Arca Swiss compatible head to an RC2 and vice versa. You just need to buy the adapter. Last thing, do be aware of the cheap plate. The difference between a cheap plate and a good one is usually the rubber. Yup, it's that little bit of rubber which will dictate whether or not you'll have slippage. Don't buy cheap plates. You've been warned. In the next pod, I'll talk about L brackets.