Adding a L-Bracket to your camera to use on a tripod

Have you ever tried to take a photo using your tripod and want to put the camera into portrait or vertical orientation? Does your tripod feel a bit off centre? Or maybe your camera keeps slipping on the plate because at that angle it is too heavy. I’ve experienced all of these.

Let me tell you a story.

When I was in Queenstown in Tasmania back in May I decided to get the milky way.

When I wanted to take the image like this it was fine.

It is never a problem when you have your camera in landscape or horizontal orientation. Just a side note I got the red glow at the bottom and at the time had no idea what it was. I think I got some early shots of the Aurora.

When I decided to try a vertical shot I had trouble.

I was using the Fujifilm X-T5 which I had a loan of from Fujifilm Australia. I had a 3 Legged Thing tripod plate for the camera, but when I angled the camera over to get the vertical shot the camera just kept sliding down. It was sort of rolling off the plate so the lens would point straight down to the ground. It’s not great when you want to take a photo that is around 20 seconds.

In the dark, I had to get my L-pbracket off my other camera and quickly put it on the X-T5 so I could take this.

At that time it was my only option.

So what is an L-Bracket?

It is pretty much what it says. It is a L shaped bracket that fits on your camera, but it has the ability to go on the tripod on the bottom of the bracket or the side. Take a look at the photos below from 3 Legged Thing where you can see how it can be used both horizontal of vertical orientations.

So what is the benefit of this?

I already mentioned the benefit of using the L-Bracket to shoot in vertical so the camera won’t slip or fall on the plate.

There is another benefit too, when you put your camera in vertical or portrait position then the camera remains on top of the tripod, it helps with the centre. This means that the tripod is far more stable. You want your tripod to be stable so it is not easy to knock it over.

Now I’m going to show you a gallery of images to look through. What I’ve tried to do is show you the camera with the L-Bracket on the tripod. We all know what the camera usually looks in horizontal or landscape, but I wanted to show it vertically for this post, so you can see how it sits on the tripod. I have also included the photo that I was taking at the time. At the end there is a couple of extra shots, which you’ve seen before, but were taken with the bracket on top of the tripod.

Have you tried a L-Bracket? What did you think?

Do you have any questions?

I want to thank 3 Legged Thing for letting me use their images to show the L-Bracket Lexie for this post. I have Ellie and Lexie for my cameras. I always get the orange because I like how it looks. Sometimes you just want some bling for your camera and I think an orange L-bracket is just the thing. What do you think?