My E-pl1-4/3 adapter-70-300mm solution (er, contraption!)

I recently purchased the panasonic m4/3 to 4/3 adapter, to pair an also new (to me) standard 4/3 lens (the 70-300mm) with my Pen cameras. When the lens and adapter arrived, it was clear balance would be an issue when mounting to a tripod. I already use dovetail quick release plates on my cameras for use with a Photoclam ballhead, so thought I could rig something up! I came up with the following.

I purchased a quick release plate clamp, and also a 100mm quick release plate, both on ebay for a total just under $50.00. I've had the QR clamp for a week, and the plate finally arrived from Hong Kong just today. You'll see from the picture below that using the additional clamp, and long plate allows the camera to be mounted to the ballhead with the weight of the lens and body centered evenly over the ballhead, making movement much smoother, with less strain on the ballhead clamp, camera and lens mounts.

There is one thing I will still do. In order to take some stress off of the lens mount (that 70-300mm plus the adapter is alot of lens hanging off the m4/3 mount - I highly doubt it would break from stress, but it makes me uncomfortable enough to do something about it!) what I am going to do is purchase some sort of rubber knob (perhaps a doorstop, will have to hit up the hardware store), which will be screwed onto the 100mm plate, and sit between the bottom 100mm plate and the lens (I will have to shape to fit right before the zoom ring).

In the last picture I also showed how I will keep the stress off of the mountings by strapping the lens down so the whole setup can also be used in portrait orientation (obviously optional, I might never bother with that!). Anyway, without further adue, here are the pics!


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Mounted like this on a tripod I think they make a great combo. Here are links to the clamp and plate:

Quick release clamp

100mm quick release plate

 

An Update!

A small update to this thread (well, maybe not miniscule!). I purchased a 90 Degree arm attachment and 7 inch rail plate from a new ebay seller ( Hejnar-Photo )

In this photo you can see the old plate, purchased from an ebay seller located in Asia, next to the Hejnar Photo plate - the new, longer plate was priced almost the same, arrived in 2 business days, and is great quality (even has distance markers!). The 90 Degree corner piece was also purchased from Hejnar for a reasonable price.

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The new rail is long enough that I will be able to use the second screw in the next photo to place a knob between the zoom and focus rings for support:

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Finally, with the 90 degree adapter I have a universal L bracket (shown with my K7)! In the vertical position the camera does sit rather high, but the setup is very stable with no play; all of the plates lock down very solidly, and it overall I am happy with this budget solution to two problems (need for an L bracket, and balancing the 70-300mm on m4/3 combination)

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