Why after waiting to see the RRS design I bought a Kirk I did not want that removable foot and extra knob. Kirk worked great and very well made. I am using the past tense since I sold the Z180-600 and the Kirk collar/foot assembly,
RRS Collar & Lens Foot for Nikon Z 180-600 Shipping Now
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Some understand the reasons Nikon (plus Canon and Sony) opt not to go Arca-Swiss as standard.
This aside with more than 50,000 180-600 known at the photosynthesis site in the year since launch some could say RRS have been slow getting their alternative to market.
I have carried some very big lenses on Black Rapids straps (even a 600 f/4E until I got a MRJan long lens carry system) I never used QD and only the screw in and always replaced the Nikon push button release lens feet with after market feet (Hejnar Photo). Being an on the go on foot birder I am in all types of terrain, steep and rocky to riparian etc here Idaho and I have never had a camera/foot combo fall off a strap. And no problem with a strap getting in the way when I raise the camera which I do a lot !
Captain Spaulding
Active member
How might a QD attachment be more supportive than Nikon’s strap lugs?
I know it’s fashionable to abuse Nikon’s lens collars. In many cases I understand why. But compared to the notchy operation of the OEM foot on my 200-500, the one on the 180-600 works fine (for me). I had a 150mm RRS plate in my spares box that I put on and it works fine. I put a Peak Design attachment thingie on each of the Nikon collar's lugs and that’s ok for now.
RRS makes very nice, precision products. But for most uses their prices are too rich for my budget.
I know it’s fashionable to abuse Nikon’s lens collars. In many cases I understand why. But compared to the notchy operation of the OEM foot on my 200-500, the one on the 180-600 works fine (for me). I had a 150mm RRS plate in my spares box that I put on and it works fine. I put a Peak Design attachment thingie on each of the Nikon collar's lugs and that’s ok for now.
RRS makes very nice, precision products. But for most uses their prices are too rich for my budget.
No clue on the QD attachment since I have never used them.
I hand hold with the lens foot resting (not gipped) in the palm of my hand aka target rifle hold. So my first issue with the stock collar/foot was wanting a longer foot. An afterthought was wanting one that would be smoother if used in a gimbal with the collar loose. As you noted it was not as"notchy" as the 200-500.
I also put a RRS universal plate I keep in my drawer, but mine is a 6". It worked better than the stock foot but still raised the center of gravity a bit so I went for the Kirk foot and collar assembly.
Captain Spaulding
Active member
My big issue with the OEM foot was the lack of an ARCA rail. The universal plate solved that. I'm a little surprised at your CG problem. With my smaller plate I can adjust the mounting location to get well within the range to balance the load on a tripod.
I do not use tripods. I have only hand held for at least 2.5 years and mostly for at least 8 years. Center of gravity for me is height not fore and aft. My comment about the gimbal was a just in case. I have a Wimberly and a mono gimbal sitting in the closet.
A big advantage of no Arca Swiss rail as standard
for many is the ability to fit a rail of a preferred length depending on how an individual photographer plans to carry the lens.Captain Spaulding
Active member
I missed the vertical part of your CG problem. I hadn’t considered that.
Dollar
Member
I may be misunderstanding your question regarding QD, but at least for me it's not that I have some doubts about the performance of the strap lugs that Nikon uses. It's just a preference of strap systems.
If you just do the traditional "attach strap ends to lugs on camera body or lens", of course it's secure but it takes time to attach or remove the strap, such as if you're changing lenses or bodies. Because of this, a lot of shooters prefer detachable solutions. Peak Design's system is undoubtedly the most popular, but I personally have never liked the idea of having a bunch of anchors dangling off of all my gear, and most of the PD solutions involve a two-point connection which I'm not a fan of in terms of handling. QD was brought over to the photography world from a military/firearms background, and there are readily-available off-the-shelf solutions to achieve a single-point connection which I consider ideal. In my opinion this gives the best handling as I can maneuver the camera in all kinds of ways without it getting twisted up as the connection to the lens foot is free to rotate in place.
Then once you decide that you like the QD system, it's a natural evolution to just want it on every lens and body for simplicity's sake. If I switch between long lenses in the field it takes me all of two seconds to pop the QD connector out of one lens foot and plug it into another. If I'm switching to a smaller lens with no collar, it takes the same amount of time to pop it out of the lens foot and into the bracket on the bottom of my camera body. If a lens has strap lugs but no QD slot, my entire system falls apart when I want to use that lens.
That being said, all I care about is a QD slot and Arca-swiss compatibility, both of which can be resolved with a foot. I'm not sure why some of the brands feel the need to replace the entire collar assembly outside of the specific cases where the OEM collar seems to be low quality.
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Dollar
Member
A big advantage of no Arca Swiss rail as standard
Most if not all of the Arca-swiss compatible aftermarket feet that I've mounted on my lenses still have a 1/4"-20 threaded port and often a 3/8"-16 port as well. Going by your explanation, I still don't see what's stopping Nikon from included a short Arca-Swiss foot on the lens as standard. Users who like a shorter foot would probably just be satisfied as-is and see no need to add aftermarket parts at all. Users who wanted a longer plate could still bolt one onto the foot, or they could replace the whole foot if that was their preference.
But providing feet that are not AS-compatible just seems like it makes nobody happy, as pretty much every user has to bolt on some kind of rail, short or long.
Yes I do agree, this seems like unfortunate timing from RRS. Moving forward I'm sure they'll see decent sales as many users default to their products due to their reputation, but surely they've missed out on a massive number of sales by not having this collar and foot available for any of the last 12 months.
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I am a bit confused easy for this old dog
Not sure what you mean by some of the brands? There are many including the Z180-600 that have a collar and foot assembly where the foot can not be replaced, it is an integral part of the colloar/foot assembly, even though the assembly is quite good as is, which the Z180-600 is, but requires the addition of a plate for arca swiss or QD compatibility.So Kirk, RRS etc can not just make a foot replacement they have to replace the entire assembly.
From what I can see the reason for RRS to do what they did is they used parts and design from other products they already made and ended up with another knob that allows the foot to be removed but that is a useless feature for me and others.
Nikons reason for not doing Arca Swiss as told to me by a Nikon tech rep is that there are many tripod and head systems that do not use Arca Swiss and require a different quick release system so they do not include any. That has not stopped other lens makers, such as Tamron from incorporating Arca Swiss but that is the Nikon reasoning.
I don;t think Canon includes Arca Swiss and I don't think Sony does either.
The only ones I have had that did were Tamron and Sigma
is the AS foot an option or do all the lenses with feet at AS?
Mine arrived today. Very well made, very smooth
The AS foot is standard
I'm gonna leave the money in my back pocket and sit on it. Use the original.
I have a cable tie around the base of the nikon collar. It’s not elegant, but I was on safari with the lens. It adds an extra level of security. I never found the mount a problem or any evidence of the collar loosening anyway. I would probably opt to add the cable tie to any hinge opening mount anyway. For me it is one less thing to worry about.
The first thing I would look for on any third party mount is whether the knob you adjust to allow rotation of the lens and camera is also the knob you undo to open it completely. Locking should never ever be on the same thread as removing.
Dollar
Member
I am a bit confused easy for this old dog
So Kirk, RRS etc can not just make a foot replacement they have to replace the entire assembly.
From what I can see the reason for RRS to do what they did is they used parts and design from other products they already made and ended up with another knob that allows the foot to be removed but that is a useless feature for me and others.
Ah, thank you for that correction! I somehow got myself mixed up and thought that the Z186 foot was removable from the collar, and thus it wasn't technically necessary to replace the collar just to change the foot. Not sure when I got that impression but things make more sense now. Apologies for any confusion.
There are two points that immediately come to mind:
The first is that similar to my previous reply above to Len, if we believe the Nikon rep's reasoning here, then in my mind they've chosen a solution that forces almost everyone who uses their lenses to employ aftermarket components to mount the lenses to tripod/monopod heads, rather than "taking a side" and potentially saving a large portion of the users (but not all!) from needing to do so. I will admit I can see why that makes sense to some, and clearly it must make sense to Nikon. Obviously, as an Arca-Swiss system user, I'm somewhat biased in my opinion that supporting that format natively would be a better move.
The other point I would raise however, is that if we look at the options on the market, in my opinion there's a clear dominance of the AS system. There are certainly some exceptions, but for the most part I believe it's mostly only very cheap tripod heads or very specialized and niche heads that do not utilize the AS system, and nearly all of those include their own proprietary QR plates which can bolt to a 1/4-20 port. The vast majority of high-quality mainstream gimbal and ball heads utilize the AS system. And furthermore, if we look at the options for aftermarket lens feet from RRS, Kirk, ProMediaGear, Wimberley, Hejnar, etc, all of them conform to Arca-Swiss spec. To me, this indicates an extremely clear market preference for the AS system, and any outliers would be no better or worse off if Nikon added AS dovetails to their lens feet, so long as Nikon continues to include 1/4-20 ports as well that proprietary plates could be mounted to.
I do hope it's understood that I'm not trying to argue with anyone on this forum personally. I know some disagree with me and I don't mean to come off as combative. Hopefully my comments are not interpreted in that way...if I had a Nikon rep available to chat with, no doubt I'd have them sick of me in record time!
I was just not sure what Nikon lens you might have been referring to. I do not know why RRS put one on their collar and foot assembly for sure but it is the same replacement foot they sell for a number of other lenses so most likely easier for them to incorporate that into the collar and have something a bit different than Kirk etc..Ah, thank you for that correction! I somehow got myself mixed up and thought that the Z186 foot was removable from the collar, and thus it wasn't technically necessary to replace the collar just to change the foot. Not sure when I got that impression but things make more sense now. Apologies for any confusion.
There are two points that immediately come to mind:
The first is that similar to my previous reply above to Len, if we believe the Nikon rep's reasoning here, then in my mind they've chosen a solution that forces almost everyone who uses their lenses to employ aftermarket components to mount the lenses to tripod/monopod heads, rather than "taking a side" and potentially saving a large portion of the users (but not all!) from needing to do so. I will admit I can see why that makes sense to some, and clearly it must make sense to Nikon. Obviously, as an Arca-Swiss system user, I'm somewhat biased in my opinion that supporting that format natively would be a better move.
The other point I would raise however, is that if we look at the options on the market, in my opinion there's a clear dominance of the AS system. There are certainly some exceptions, but for the most part I believe it's mostly only very cheap tripod heads or very specialized and niche heads that do not utilize the AS system, and nearly all of those include their own proprietary QR plates which can bolt to a 1/4-20 port. The vast majority of high-quality mainstream gimbal and ball heads utilize the AS system. And furthermore, if we look at the options for aftermarket lens feet from RRS, Kirk, ProMediaGear, Wimberley, Hejnar, etc, all of them conform to Arca-Swiss spec. To me, this indicates an extremely clear market preference for the AS system, and any outliers would be no better or worse off if Nikon added AS dovetails to their lens feet, so long as Nikon continues to include 1/4-20 ports as well that proprietary plates could be mounted to.
I do hope it's understood that I'm not trying to argue with anyone on this forum personally. I know some disagree with me and I don't mean to come off as combative. Hopefully my comments are not interpreted in that way...if I had a Nikon rep available to chat with, no doubt I'd have them sick of me in record time!
I know many others on this forum and in person who have had that conversation with various levels of Nikon and I also know that it is a puzzle to some Nikon sales reps and at least one NPS reps but at they put it What we see as popular AS in the US is not necessarily so in the rest of the world. I have not used tripods or mono pods etc. since I have moved to the Z system and have a lot of tripods, mono pods, gimbal heads, mono gimbal, FlexShooter Pro lever ball head (it had already had sidelined my gimbal) sitting in my closet but they all are Arca Swiss compatible.
Tamron lens expert and regional rep who has worked in the industry for many years is just as puzzled as we are
Several QR plates do have both screw sizes (I use them) - with a choice of lengths depending on an individuals carrying preference.
Except
1/ Single 3/8 monopod without a head is a common standard for many pro sports photographers
2/ different tripod heads benefit from a choice different length plates
3 There are QR systems other than the somewhat not standardised Arca Swiss.
We have entered an era where shutterless cameras and IBIS/improved in lens VR reduce the need for a tripod collar often significantly - but another topic.
I continue to use the original lens collar without issue. Is it me or does the rotation simply become better over time? It was not impressive when I first got the lens. I was using it yesterday and it I realised that it has been rotating quite smoothly for a while now. I still have a cable tie on it to prevent it unlocking. I think this is just me being cautious. Life with the lens is simpler when you have one less thing to worry about.
I am glad I didn’t opt for a third party replacement.
I am glad I didn’t opt for a third party replacement.
Mine ALWAYS rotated easily provided I rotated the knob up to 2 turns when new or just over 1 turn now.
I consider this more than reasonable for a lens "built down to a price" without the extra cost of a ball bearing type collar.
Others can pay up to 10% more than the price of the lens for the lens - just as some might pay 5% of the lens price for a padded case to transport it.
Everybody has a personal "caution level".
As I transport the lens to a location in a back-pack and often use it hand held in the field my perceived risk is probably different to yours.
Agreed
For the gain, usually with the minus factor of a foot too short for my needs (carrying it upside down by an at least 5 inch long foot) I do not consider them worth the money.
On the other hand, I do not consider my wife needs as many pairs of shoes as she has, and she considers I do not need as many camera lenses as I have. Free choice can be important.