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Home >> Photography >> Accessories
Arca
Swiss Plates from Kirk Enterprises
 I
finally broke down and bought some dedicated Arca Swiss compatible quick release plates from Kirk Enterprises.
I have been using the Arca Swiss B1 ball head
for a couple of years now and love its rock steadiness and versatility.
However, I refrained from spending major bucks on the plates in favour of some generic plates bought at the same time as the
B1.
I bought three plates, a one-inch, two-inch, and a three-inch plate
from my local Arca Swiss source of Leo’s in
downtown
Vancouver
. These
generic plates are quite well made and most importantly, they are affordable
compared to Arca Swiss’ own plates for their
renowned ball heads.
My one-inch generic plate cost half as much as the same-size Arca Swiss plate and the two and three-inch plates were about
$50 and $60 respectively. I have been able to get by with just three
plates with my film cameras but have on many occasions, had to switch
the two-inch plate from my 80-200mm lens to the F100 or MB15 for use
with smaller lenses. The three-inch plate is exclusively for the Bronica
SQ-Ai bodies.
 After
purchasing the D100 D-SLR and getting tired of having to share one two-inch
plate amongst three cameras and one lens, I returned to Leo’s to see
if they had anymore plates to spare. I already knew this to be a long
shot since past visits always resulted in empty hands for these generic
plates and this last trip was no different. It seems the generic plate
maker has either gone belly-up or has gotten into a new line of business.
With no cheap and local source for the Arca Swiss plates, I had little choice but to look to one of the major third-party
manufacturers of Arca Swiss plates. There
are two main sources of plates, Kirk Enterprises and Really Right Stuff.
There are some minor sources such as Wimberley and even other ball head
manufacturers have ripped off the Arca Swiss
design, but these minor sources do not have the many choices and custom
fitted plates offered by Kirk and RRS.
I think I would have been quite happy with RRS plates but I went with
Kirk for convenience. The online shopping at their website made the
selection process easy and most important of all, I could purchase immediately
via secure credit card transaction. Three days after the order I received
my products via Fedex delivery.
I understand that RRS is now under new ownership and they appear to
be changing their prior business practices that were so archaic that
horse and buggy came to mind. RRS now accepts credit card payment, which
they eschewed for so long, however, you must still fax or mail the information
to them.
I
have also had previous dealings with Kirk and it is a well run business
attuned to the needs of the consumer. Besides which, Kirk and RRS have
been copying each other’s designs so much that I doubt it would matter
at all which plates I used.
Now that I have my Kirk plates, I wondered, what took me so long? They
are solid and light due to a new hollowed out design to get rid of unnecessary
bulk and weight and they are not that expensive compared to true Arca Swiss plates.
I bought three plates again, a PZ-71 dedicated to the D100, an LP-4
dedicated to the Nikon 80-200mm f2.8 lens (non-AFS) and a PZ-3 generic
plate for general use. Now my old two-inch plate can be dedicated to
my F100/MB15 without having to be shared with anything else.
It is also telling that I did not purchase any dedicated plates for
the F100, although I gave it some hard thought. I looked at how I would
shoot with my 35mm kit and came to the conclusion that I would not likely
shoot 35mm film for my own personal use except on rare occasions. Digital
is where it’s at for me and the D100 is the primary camera I use for
most of my day to day photography, hence no need to spend an additional $100 CAN
for a film camera plate that would see minimal use.
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- Here
we have my old two-inch plate compated to the dedicated Kirk plate
for the Nikkor 80-200mm f2.8 (non-AFS)
- Notice
the hollowed out design of the Kirk plate in areas that do not require
the extra bulk for rigidity - this ensures the Kirk plates are nice
and light
- You
can also see the hollowed out design in the PZ-71 plate picture above
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Any
gripes? Just a couple that are specific to the individual plates:
- The
PZ-3 plate shown here mounted to a Nikon F100 camera, does not have
an anti-twist lip to prevent slippage
- My old
one-inch plate shown below the PZ-3 has an anti-twist lip
- Kirk
likely did not add the lip to ensure widespread compatibility with
all sorts of cameras and lenses, but I think they were wrong on this
one
- The
danger is that without that anti-twist lip, a user may torque the
plate into the tripod or lens mount too tightly
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- Next
gripe is that the anti-twist lip for the LP-4 for the 80-200mm lens
is not contoured to fit the lens' tripod mount exactly, whereas the
PZ-71 for the D100 is perfectly contoured for the front curve of the
MB-D100 grip
- I think
Kirk could have done this plate better because as it is, this dedicated
plate fits no better than my older and cheaper generic two-inch plate
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