3 Legged Thing Ultra plates review

For

+ Superb finish and construction
+ Multiple accessory mounting points
+ Cold shoe mount
+ Cable hook
+ Choice of sizes and colors

Against

–  Price? Maybe, but you get what you pay for

3 Legged Thing is using Kickstarter to launch a set of long ‘Ultra’ camera plates compatible with Arca Swiss heads and with a large number of very interesting features. Check out the 3 Legged Thing Ultra Kickstarter page for more details and pricing.

Long camera plates are useful for all sorts of reasons, often just to help balance longer or heavier camera and lens combinations when you expect to use camera movements or to be able to slacken off the head without the camera tipping forward. 

Most video heads come with a longer than usual plate to help balance the camera for tilt movements, and a long plate can also be useful for panoramic photography where you may need to position the optical center of the lens directly over the panning axis. A longer plate can also be useful for close up and macro photography where you need precise fore and aft positioning without having to move the tripod

So already there are lots of good reasons for using a long camera plate. The Ultra plates go a whole lot further, though, and not just in length but in features.

They come in four sizes: 150mm, 200mm, 250mm and 300mm. They also come in two colors – the ‘Copper’ color seen across the 3 Legged Thing range in various components and accent colors, and a satin black ‘Midnight’ finish.

The shortest 150mm plate is about the length you might get with a good video head, and while the longest 300mm plate might seem like overkill, there are good reasons for these different sizes, and they turn the regular camera plate into a much more versatile and useful accessory.

3 Legged Thing Ultra plates: key features

The point is that the Ultra plates aren’t just designed to hold cameras. They all come with multiple 1/4”-20 mounting points, which is a standard size for video, filmmaking and lighting accessories.

In fact, while you can use the shorter Ultra plates simply for mounting a camera, the longer ones are more like ‘accessory rails’. Creators and filmmakers will often rig up a camera for filming using a cage and then mount accessories like lights, mics and external recorders on to that. The Ultra plates offer an alternative approach which may prove more flexible and certainly allows you to mount accessories further apart. You might want to have a light offset as far as possible from the camera axis, for example.

There are a host of other features which make it clear that 3 Legged Thing has given the Ultra plates a lot of thought, right down to the smallest details. As well as two rows of mounting points, there’s also a slide-in coldshoe mount, which is useful for accessories which don’t have mounting screws, and if you’re using external recorders or mics you’re probably going to have cables hanging around in the way, but at one end of these plates is a cable hook for quickly routing them out of the way.

There are measurement scales on either side of the plates for precise positioning, and if you turn them over you’ll see there’s a square cutout for quick 90° rotations on heads that support it. That does mean that you’re anchoring the plate right at the end, but with a decent head and tripod that shouldn’t be a problem.

3 Legged Thing Ultra plates in use

These plates have chamfered edges so they slide into tripod heads very nicely. There are locating pins that stand slightly proud to stop the plate sliding out completely when it’s loosened, but it looks like these will spin out with the right-sized hex key if they interfere with your tripod head – even though the Arca Swiss size is standardized, there are still some variations in head design.

All four have inset diamond-shaped rubber panels on the top to grip accessories more effectively (otherwise it’s a real nuisance when they turn and loosen). You get a single attachment screw, but with the longer plates there’s enough space to attach more than one camera, so I’m guessing extra screws won’t be hard to get separately. These longer plates would be ideal for mounting two cameras side by side for comparative testing, for example, or to film and shoot at the same time.

Here’s another neat design touch. These plates have a ‘security’ fitting for the camera screw which means you can take them out on purpose by sliding them to one end and unscrewing them, but they can’t fall out. I have an AirHed Cine with a plate that has two screw sizes and a hole at the end of the slot that the smaller one can fall out of – very annoying! Of course, now I can simply swap out this regular plate with one of the new Ultra plates, with all their clever features

3 Legged Thing Ultra plates verdict

These Ultra plates are going to be of most use to content creators and filmmakers, though they have great features for regular stills photography too, both for balancing cameras with heavy lenses more effectively, for panning and panoramic movements and for macro work.

Their real strength, though, lies in their multiple mounting points, cable hook and ability to handle multiple accessories – especially the longer 250mm and 300mm versions. They are beautifully made from ‘aerospace grade’ magnesium alloy, and both the Copper and Darkness finishes have a real air of quality.

They’re not cheap options. They’re made with a level of quality and detail that’s pretty obvious straight away, and will suit photographers and creators who need well-made, well-designed gear that’s quick and efficient to use and won’t let them down.

I’ve got along all right so far without long camera plates, but now I see what these 3 Legged Thing Ultra plates can do, I’m starting to see whole new ways of filming and shooting that I wouldn’t have thought of before. I think they’re brilliant. 

Check out the 3 Legged Thing Ultra Kickstarter page for more details and pricing.