Originally posted by Samsungian As time has passed I found Kirk makes 8" arca quick release lens plates. It came with a studio ball I bought used. I bet it would be long enough to toss the weight on a 135-600mm SMC-K to achieve perfect balance. P50 plate was way too short.
Based on what I've done to balance mine, that
length would certainly be adequate, but honestly I'd be concerned about a lens plate being able to cantilever that (poorly balanced) weight - I think it might break! I use an 18" RRS "Camera Support" bar, which is about 7/8" thick. They make a 10" bar that I probably could have squeaked by with for balancing the 135-600, but I didn't really know how much length I needed when I bought it and figured the 18" version would guarantee adequate length (
and strength) to do it. Plus, it doubles as a great macro focusing rail, and thereby kills 2 birds with one stone
Actually, now that I've thought about it a bit more I
don't think an 8" lens plate could balance it anyway; I was thinking 8" of
offset being available, but typically the screw mounting location wouldn't be
all the way at the end of the plate, which means you probably couldn't as a practical matter get more than about 4-5" of offset. It actually takes about
7 inches of offset to balance "the Beast."