I had one of Juice Designs base plates on my EX1 and it was fantastic. It never came off the camera and gave me the confidence that any loads exerted on the base of the camera were spread over the entire EX1 base rather than the weedy single 1/4″ screw hole on the bottom of the EX1. When the EX1R arrived things were somewhat improved as now instead of one weedy 1/4″ thread there are two weedy 1/4″ threads. Great you think, two is better than one, but the little postage stamp sized plate that has the tripod mounting holes is attached to the EX’s chassis by 4 teeny tiny screws. These have a tendency to work loose over time and can break quite easily if over stressed. If you really load up the tripod mount you can fracture the casting or worse still the chassis of the camera. If all that isn’t bad enough the other issue I have with my EX1R in particular is that the tripod mount casting is very slightly proud of the base of the camera, so when its on a tripod (or my 3D rig) it wobbles about quite a bit as there is only about 1 square inch of metal in contact with the tripod. Clearly none of these are desirable and that’s where the Juice designs base plates come to the rescue. The EX1 version is attached to the base of the camera in four places. The obvious 2 are the normal pair of 1/4″ tripod threads. The other two are a couple of small screws that normally hold some of the plastic camera body parts on to the chassis. By spreading any loads across much more of the base of the camera the tripod to camera interface will be much stronger. In addition the camera is now rock solid on my tripod and 3D rig. If anyone is thinking of using an EX1 or EX1R on a 3D rig a base plate like this is not an option, it is absolutely essential!

The base plate is machined from a single piece of aluminium and anodised black. It is clearly a well though out design with nice curves that make follow the contours of the camera, indeed it looks like it really is park of the camera. It even has small recesses in it to clear some of the lumps and bumps that are on the base of the EX1R. At the rear of the base plate there is a small cut out area that allows you to add an optional bolt on accessory arm or “wing”. You can use the arm to attach devices such as the NanoFlash or Radio Mic receiver. The arm is supplied with a cold shoe mount which can be attached in a variety of positions making it very flexible indeed.

It took just minutes to fit the plate. It comes with all the screws that you need plus a couple of allen keys. You will need a small jewellers screwdriver to remove two small screws from the base of the EX1R. This is a high quality product that should help protect you investment and make the camera more stable, so highly recommended. See Juice Designs web site for more information.