I Love a Good Tool
If you've read my thoughts about "working the scene", you know I believe in reframing a great shot in the opposite orientation - changing a landscape composition into a portrait composition or vice versa - as you search for the best picture. But the problem in doing that with a normal tripod head (ball or multi-axis) is that the act of rolling the camera over 90 degrees changes the composition you worked so hard to refine. Not only do you re-orient the camera body, you also move the whole camera sideways at the same time. On my Manfrotto 488RC2 ballhead, the center of the lens moves over almost three inches between vertical and horizontal orientation.
This has two negative effects. First, for normal shooting, it means you have to re-frame your shot, probably by physically moving the whole tripod. That takes time, is distracting from the esthetic process, and not be possible in some tight shooting locations (think Lower Antelope Canyon...) Second, if you are trying to shoot panoramas, with the camera set in portrait orientation, you are creating parallax error that will make it more difficult to assemble a good panorama image. Learn more about parallax.
Now, there are expensive (and elegant) solutions to this problem. The folks at Really Right Stuff make custom-fit L-mounting plates that let you flip the camera over without losing the tripod "point of view" setting. Unfortunately, their elegance is matched by their price; the model for my Canon 1Ds is $183, plus I would have to convert all my tripods/monopods over to the RSS mounts, and convert my other camera bodies to those mounts...another $550+ to change out from the Manfrotto RC2 system that I have standardized across my equipment. As my friends will tell you, I am a frugal person - well, they would probably just say I'm cheap. Whichever adjective you choose, I had been unwilling to spend over $700 to get the ease of change-over.
Let me be clear: the Junior Elbow Bracket is not as good as the custom-fit RRS plates. It covers up the battery compartment on my 1Ds, so I have to pull the plate off to change batteries. It also has the world's dumbest system for retaining the main screw that attaches the plate to your camera (hint - it's a rubber screw-on cap.) But, I think it is one of the best price-to-results pieces of gear I have seen in the last several years. It provides an excellent solution for orientation change once you've adjusted it to your camera's dimensions, it's neither too heavy (11.2 oz.) nor too large for packing in your camera bag, and it's sturdy enough to securely support my DLSR + lens combo.
For panoramas, again the Bracket is not as good as a fully adjustable pano head, which will let you set the nodal point of rotation to exactly match your camera and lens. But the least expensive Manfrotto pano head retails for $485. The $80 Junior Elbow Bracket puts the lens center so much closer to the nodal point that I have no problems getting clean stitching on multi-frame panoramas. I don't take full 3-D or spherical panoramas, so I am quite satisfied with the tremendous improvement I get in one-dimension panoramas. All in all, a solid piece of inexpensive gear that gets the job done well - a great tool!
