Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing
I love 1&#x2F;4-20 sockets. Attach my camera to a flash bracket? Yep. Attach an eyebolt to attach a carabiner to attach a neck strap? Yep. Attach a hand strap or a 40mm, 80mm, or 200mm Arca Swiss plate. Yep. Yep, Yep and Yep.<p>There&#x27;s nothing stopping a photographer from permanently attaching an Arca-Swiss plate to the bottom of a camera body with a bit of cyanoacrylate or some screws if it makes better photographs. For me, walking around with an Arca-Swiss plate on my camera made me appreciate that 1&#x2F;4-20 socket is flush. Walking around with a 120mm plate made me appreciate that the 1&#x2F;4-20 socket is flush both top to bottom and front to back.<p>Like everything in photography 1&#x2F;4-20 and Arca-Swiss are defined by engineering tradeoffs. The cost of slower direct attachment of 1&#x2F;4-20 is in exchange for the physical strength of bolted connection and the flexibility adopting a broader standard affords - I can build a camera mount from general components available at the hardware store (including round stock and a 1&#x2F;4-20 die in a statistically unlikely universe).<p>edit: I left out all the electronic&#x2F;software rants because photography is undergoing Cambrian explosion in regards to controls and computation (but mirrorless cameras are nothing new).