FAST SHIPPING | LIFETIME WARRANTY | EASY RETURNS
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Using 3rd Party Tripod Plates & L-Brackets in the Peak Design Travel Tripod

If you own a Peak Design Travel Tripod and want to use a 3rd party tripod plate with it, this article is for you.

 

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Before we begin, note that the Peak Design Travel Tripod comes with a tripod plate. It's called the Standard Plate. It's the same plate that comes with Capture and Clutch, and it fits in many 3rd party Arca-compatible tripod heads. If you're wondering about that, check out this other article.

Back to the main event:

 

The Peak Design Travel Tripod works with many (but not all) 3rd party Arca-compatible tripod plates.

When designing the quick release mechanism on our Travel Tripod, a top criteria was to make sure it functioned well with all the plates that Peak Design has made over the years. Another goal was to support as many 3rd party "Arca" plates as possible.

The Arca (short for Arca-Swiss) tripod plate geometry is about the closest thing there is to a universal standard. From our observations, about 85% of professional tripods have Arca-compatible heads. But from an engineering perspective, it's not quite as standardized as we'd like it to be. There are no published dimensions and tolerances...rather, different brands tend to do things slightly differently. We've learned over the years that these slight geometric variances mean that some 3rd party plates don't work well in our Travel Tripod.

We'd love to offer a definitive and complete list of all compatible and non-compatible plates, but due to the sheer quantity of makes and models, and the time it would take to sufficiently run compatibility tests (we like to do things thoroughly), such a list is not feasible. 

So instead, here's what we suggest:

 

Option 1: Go to a local camera store and test compatibility yourself.

If you want to be absolutely sure, try it before you buy it. Use our dealer locator to find a place near you.

 

Option 2: Check out our customer-generated list of compatible heads and L-brackets.

The products below are recommended by current Travel Tripod users. Note that these models have not necessarily been rigorously tested by our engineering team.

Also, help us grow and improve this list! Use this form to submit your suggestions for compatible (or incompatible) tripod heads and L-brackets.

Option 3: Really Right Stuff user? Read our RRS compatibility article.

Really Right Stuff (RRS) has been at the top of the tripod game for decades. Their products are extremely high quality and universally respected by serious pro photographers.

Recently we discovered some compatibility issues between our Travel Tripod and some RRS heads and L-brackets. Our engineers are actively working on a solution. In the meantime, this article explains those issues and how you can mitigate them.