Lensplates are the primary way that customers mount a plate to their lenses so that they can achieve proper balance on a Jobu gimbal head.
Lately, however, we have been pushing customers more and more to use Jobu Replacement Feet for their original foot collars. Here's an overview of why.
Lensplate Pros:
- Lensplates are adjustable. Multiple hole locations, slots and the option of reversing a plates direction offer many choices to get the best balance for a lens.
- Lensplates generally fit many different lenses and can thus be swapped for convenience.
- Lensplates are quite a bit less expensive than replacement feet.
Lensplate Cons:
- Lensplates often just plain don't fit well. No matter how many styles we offer, someone always finds a lens, scope or optic of some sort from WWII that we don't have a perfect fit for. Like shoes and feet, there is no perfect shoe for every person on the planet.
- Lensplates add to the stack height of a lens (by adding 0.38"). This often can upset the balance of the lens and make it unusable in a gimbal head by pushing the center of gravity over the tilt axis.
- Lensplates, can, and often get loose due to the movement of the plates and screws. Any small shifts in assembly or temperature can affect the tightness of the screws, they should be checked often for security.
Replacement Foot Pros:
- Replacement feet perfectly fit your lens and offer reduced stack height, making lenses work better on a gimbal head. This is a great solution, and highly recommended, for lenses (We're talking to you, Nikon!) that have REALLY tall foot collars. Adding a plate to an already tall Nikon 500/F4 VR is NOT recommended at all (or the 300F2.8, 600F4, 400F2.8, 200-400, etc.)
- Replacement feet don't come loose. The tightly pitched threads make things less prone to separating from use and transport.
Replacement Foot Cons:
- Although we design our Jobu replacement feet to balance with both heavy pro-size cameras and lightweight consumer cameras, there are often situations where things just don't balance out. Adding flash, converters, L brackets, neoprene covers, and other accessories can move the balance point past the length of the lens foot (either forward or backward).
- Replacement feet are more expensive than lensplates.
Important tip! When using Replacement Feet, always check to ensure that the original manufacturer's screws do not protrude farther on the replacement foot than the stock foot. If the screws appear to be longer, DO NOT USE IT. Please contact Jobu Design for alternate hardware.