C100: C100 Handle 1/4" mounting hole failure; be careful!

D

deanoise

Member
The 1/4" hole at the top rear of the handle (#8 on page 20 of the manual). Use it gently. Mine failed (actually broke, not stripped). I've only used it to hold a SmallHD DP4 monitor, about a pound. Sent it into Canon for repair and was told by the rep that several of these are failing, especially rental houses sending them in. But they will not fix it under warranty, they wanted to replace my entire handle to the tune of about $600. The part looks like it's only held in by 4 easily replaceable phillips screws but I was told that's just a cover plate and the actual mount needs to be extracted from the handle by disassembling it, which apparently they didn't want to do, so the only option is to buy the new handle. I went up the ladder of supervisors at Canon and still got no joy. I got the impression this is an engineering screwup Canon will just remain tight lipped and stodgy about. It's too bad, using a small monitor in that spot is pretty sweet, I'll have to figure something else out.
 
Thanks for the warning. I'm very sorry to hear you were met by a big corporation road block and didn't get it fixed. I've sensed a reluctance from Canon in my previous dealings with them so I'm really not surprised by your experience. I use this hole a lot to hold my Ninja 2 so I will be careful from now on.
 
Thanks for the info, certainly good to know as I haven't used it really so far, but was planning on for some future projects.
 
The issue I have with that is that you're still only mounting to the single point of contact (the hotshoe). If you're going to go to the trouble of adding an aftermarket handle you might as well do it properly and get something like the C100 cage from Tilta or Redrock.
 
Curnsie said:
Thanks for the warning. I'm very sorry to hear you were met by a big corporation road block and didn't get it fixed. I've sensed a reluctance from Canon in my previous dealings with them so I'm really not surprised by your experience. I use this hole a lot to hold my Ninja 2 so I will be careful from now on.
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Me too. The C in Canon doesn't stand for care, if anyone was curious.
 
mcgeedigital said:
Thats not a solution to the hole being a weak point.
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Why not? Its replacing the crappy holes on the plastic Canon handle with a nice solid machined handle with more solid holes. I'd rather spend $150 then have Canon try and charge me $600 for another inferior handle. I read it as the OP wasn't having issue with the mounting point of the handle but the mount on the handle. Maybe I'm missing what the OP is asking for here.
 
Hi, OP here. My intention with this post was just to warn you guys about that one particular threaded mount at the top rear of the handle, and that Canon is not handling problems with it well. While the GenusTech handle looks really nice, using a different handle doesn't make sense to me, as I nearly always record audio and the C100 handle contains XLR inputs, preamps, etc. I generally think the entire camera (with the exception of the viewfinder and this 1/4" mount) is extremely well designed and I am so happy it exists, but every piece of amazing technology has a problem or two and this is one I've found, in addition to Canon's "warranty".
 
Oh ya I forgot about that. I regularly use a c300 and didn't realize the audio pod didn't detach like the C300. Yes I understand how the Genus handle wouldn't work for you. It sucks that you received such a response from Canon. Now I understand why taking the entire handle apart would be a big deal for them with all the audio built in and non removable.
 
This is what I did, bonus is you can use the handle as handle now without anything on top of it.20130809_150614[1].jpg
 
The cheese plate looks like a good solution. The only thing I would caution folks about it not to use any screws that are too long in any of these 1/4" ports. If the screw bottoms out and you torque on it, you're going to be putting a lot of stress on the threads, possibly stripping them or breaking the screw housing, or whatever that would be called. As far as the handle attachment point is concerned, I suspect that's the strongest on the camera, probably integrated into the metal frame. I'd love to see an engineering schematic of that area...
 
I haven't had any issues with my handle, top or bottom - I use a Wooden Camera Cheese Plate on the deck and don't hang anything off the top. However, it seems many have had problems, with no joy from Canon -

My solution would be, rather than argue with Canon (and I'm sorry to hear they're not respnsive), to get the RedRock cage and handle (I do wish Wooden or Viewfactor made one though).

What to do about the audio? you ask... Simple - get a good hacksaw blade and cut the audio block off the old handle (Canon won't warrantee it anyway), leaving it long on the top portion to drill & tap and mount a simple rod block (Amazon, 15 bucks). Then slide the rod block onto the top of the RedRock... I might do it anyway just to avoid problems down the road.
 
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