Arri 19mm BP confusion!

[Johnny Johnson]

Since the Arri 19mm BP's are backordered up to 600 cameras, how are these people mounting their camera to the tripod? Are they using cheeseplates?

How does this affect using standard 19mm acessories (FF, MB20 etc), since I thought you couldnt use an arri made base plate?

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

You can use the RED bottom plate to mount your 19mm rods -- but they're backordered too. With the RED bottom plate, you can then mount to a tripod by using the shoulder dovetail or the cheese plate.

Without the RED bottom plate, you can use the cheese plate to give you more options for mounting positions, or screw your tripod plate right to the bottom of the camera.

If you need 19mm rods and don't have the ET Arri baseplate or the RED bottom plate, you're kinda hosed. Arri baseplates for other cameras won't place the rods at the right vertical distance from optical center on the RED, so could be problematic with matteboxes and other gear.

 

[Matthew Rogers]

I think the most frustrating part is that no one from RED (that I've seen on the board) has mentioned that they haven't been shipping the bottom plate for a while. Plus, nothing about when it will be shipping again--which without, makes a mattebox, FF, and lens support hard to mount.

Matthew

 

[Shawn Booth]

My bottom plate AND ARRI base plate both shipped and arrived on Friday. They're shipping bottom plates now and had them available at Red Day on Friday as well.

 

[Zach Hilton]

We got both of ours on Thursday past (April 24th), and not a moment too soon either. We've been renting bottom plates from other local red owners to satisfy our other needs, so glad we don't have to do that anymore.

 

[Gary Stone]

i wonder if the new batch of bottom plates have been updated. some people reported problems with them not fitting the camera correctly. any way of seeing if this is the case? if they've modified the design, maybe that's what caused the shortage of bottom plates...

 

[Cail Young]

The ARRI Standard 16 bridge plate will work, although as there's only one point of attachment you may get some wobble if you don't crank the screw down.

 

[Matthew Chuang]

Does the ARRI BP 8 work with RED? Its the 19mm base plate for the 435 and 235, Standard 35 and Super 35.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

People reporting problems with bottom plates not fitting are probably not taking the time to make sure the plate is properly seated and aligned before tightening it down. There is no position locking pin or other means to square-up the plate with the camera and it's easy to let it get tightened down while slightly out of alignment. The same applies to the Arri plates if you mount them... That's what you get when the only two attachment points for the baseplate are the two 3/8" holes on the bottom of the camera.

The Arri 16 plate will fit, but it holds the rods at the wrong vertical distance from optical center. This may or may not work for you. I don't know about the BP 8, but I can't see where it would place the rods at the right height.

All the ET baseplates I have seen work just great, both 15mm and 19mm and they're every bit as nice (in some ways nicer) than the Arri plates.

The ET 2060/2575 dovetail plates have been revised -- design changed just before NAB this year. They have a better locking tab and more mounting holes for various tripod plates. That 12" dovetail with the 19mm Arri base sees daily use here, mounted to a Miller Arrow 55 head and occasionally a 2575 head. I had it mounted on an Arri head (geared head) a week or so back and it was wonderful for the first 5 minutes... Then the client had me pull the camera so they could mount a tele-prompter with its own flimsy-ass mounting system that went between the Arri Head and my dovetail plate. It worked fine, but the tele-prompter introduced a lot of wobble into the system since it was so flimsy.