Redrock + 7D + Battery Grip?

qazwsx

qazwsx

Well-known member
Does anyone know if the 7D with battery grip on a redrock micro support baseplate low riser will be too high (need to shim mattebox and follow focus)?

Are there any straignt, non-cage rail support systems that work well with the 7D with battery grip attached? What about the 1dmkiv?
 
My advice: dump the grip. Most video accessories are made for cameras with a horizontal form factor - grips just make your camera even more vertical, and even more unbalanced. You really can't handhold a DSLR for video, so why add something that is essentially useless? I get it that people don't want to change batteries all day, but really, with a 5-minute clip limit, you will have plenty of opportunities to swap a battery in. Adding a grip to a tripod, a crane, a steadicam, or a shoulder rig (don't even try a fig rig) is something I find remarkably pointless. Sell it on eBay (unless you do stills work with the same body) and get something useful.

Even with my Canon set to remain "on" for 30 minutes (always seemed to click "off" the second I finished direction and returned to the viewfinder) I only seem to swap batteries every hour or two. After a couple swipes with an angle grinder, my baseplate now has a perfect slot for the battery door to open, so the body can live on the rails all day.

My opinion: grip+video=silly - YMMV of course.
 
I don't have a riser necessary to attach my camera to my rails, I found the grip and attached it, whereas it's the perfect height to accomodate for the FF and the geared lenses, the fact that it's plastic and has one screw, really makes it shaky. You can't pull focus without the image shaking. Gave up on it after a day of denial. The thing needs to be as tight as possible and a plastic grip won't do that.

If you know any way to make it work and prove me wrong please tell me cause I can't buy anything abroad from here. It's really a pain in the ass that I've given up on and I just wait for friends to come in to beirut from outside.

T
 
I do stills work with the same body and it has a handstrap attached so the grip is not easily removed from (or put back on) the camera. I wanted to see if there was some way to make it a bit more convenient and let me leave the grip installed.

I've handheld a few shots with the grip at 135mm on the IS kit lens and the results have actually been pretty good; a lot more stable than without the grip.

Also, the ability to use AA batteries has helped me out when in a pinch in the field with no place to plug in a charger.
 
i use the grip with my t2i because other wise you have to take off the tripod plate to change a battery, the 7D is wide enough that this is not the case so I don't know that it is necessary. Just get a quick release plate and its not that bad.
 
For my T2i, I just chopped a hole in the baseplate for the battery door.

I use a grip with my D90 (stills) and though the AA battery option can be handy, it's far more expensive than just buying a pile of aftermarket batteries. Numerous posts here agree with my experience - $10 eBay Canon batteries are functionally identical to Canon-brand. I get surprisingly long run-times and no issues. For the cost of a handful of AAs you can get a spare battery - no reason to not own 5 or 6. I keep a roll of blue painter's tape by my charger and tape over the contacts of charged batteries, so on-set I can quickly tell which ones are fresh and which are dead.
 
I too do not suggest shooting with a battery pack for general use, but as with these DSLRs, there are always going to be special cases.
Redrock does have a setup for when you're using a battery grip, it is designed for use with it's DSLR baseplate as opposed to it's full sized camera baseplate like you are using, but essentially it will work.
http://store.redrockmicro.com/Catalog/DSLRClamps/microRiserQuckRelease

But as to you're original question, yes you could essentially add four inches of shims under the rod clamp, but the kit does not come with screws long enough to accommodate that. If you're handy, you could build a shim yourself and get longer screws from a hardware store.
 
Michael Carter said:
My advice: dump the grip.
Click to expand...

Agreed - a lot of good points around this conclusion. Makes the center of gravity higher, the connection isn't solid, and all you'll do is spend additional $$ compensating for it. Better spent on more batteries, or better yet an external batt.


Brian
 
I actually really like my grip.

Running two batteries means more time w/o a change. It made my rig a bit taller, so i did need a height riser for the matte box.
 
I've got a t2i and a Tamron 17-50, so if I want to my cam on a plate of any sort I have no choice but to use a battery grip, the barrel extends out below the body. I've had no problems thus far.
 
nicksnow said:
I've got a t2i and a Tamron 17-50, so if I want to my cam on a plate of any sort I have no choice but to use a battery grip, the barrel extends out below the body. I've had no problems thus far.
Click to expand...


@nicksnow Many larger lenses have barrels extend below the base of the camera body, so it's not unique to the T2i. The DSLR baseplate we have raises the camera body to allow for that and puts it at a standard height without the use of a battery grip. We've used it with lenses as larger as 800mm with no problems.

If you are just mounting the camera flat against a tripod head without any DSLR baseplate then yeah, that would be a bit of a problem.

B
 
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