Really Right Stuff EOS R5 and R6 with BG-R10 Vertical Battery Grip L-Plate

I love RRS and have a ton of their products on all my cameras. Tripod, ball heads, etc... This L-Plate does the best job I think they can dealing with the articulating LCD screen. Unfortunately to have vertical mounting capabilities the design of this interferes some with the range of articulation on the LCD screen. I shoot tethered a lot both wired and wirelessly with a cam ranger... and that makes it even harder with the screen. I can't quite blame RRS for this, it's just a weird design to work around on the camera. Of course it's rock solid and will support your camera no problem. It also was designed to be able to slide out to make room for cables for tethering and such. Overall it's worth it, just wish I could have the best of both worlds: full LCD range and fully rigged L-Plate.

Fits my R5 great and is easy to attach. really like integrated hex key so it is always there when you need it. Fits my RRS head very well.

I am a strong believer in RRS products as they are all well made, durable, and extremely reliable. This L bracket certainly fits that description and functions as designed. It fits well on the battery grip and securely fastens. One notable limitation is that it restricts the articulating screen of the R5. While you are able or open the screen, flip it out, you cannot flip it up or down, or face forward as the bracket restricts this movement. If these functions are essential to your workflow, you should explore some other bracket options that provide for this functionality.

This RRS L Bracket is extremely sturdy and light weight. It is perfect with my RRS BH-55 and Arca Swiss level head!

Although there may be cheaper alternatives, I trust Really Right Stuff to protect my camera. The L bracket makes it easy to switch from portrait to landscape mode for tripod work. A fall a few years back convinced me of the value. The bracket saved my camera. It surely would have been destroyed if not for the L bracket.

Sure you can buy cheaper but why ? Had a really right stuff L bracket on a camera. Took a fall and the L bracket saved the camera . Well worth the investment and protection afforded !

I narrowed my choices to this Really Right Stuff L-Plate (hereafter "RRS") and the Kirk Enterprise Solutions L-Plate (hereafter "KES"). Since the .10 difference between the brands is insignificant and I would be using the bracket extensively over a 10-year lifespan, I wanted to examine them personally to choose the one that would work best for me. I ordered both brands to examine side by side for use with my R5 + BG-R10 grip. Based on the catalog description and photos I expected to prefer the KES over the RRS. However, after examining both L-Plates on my R5 I decided the RRS was the clear winner. Here is why ... KES has scalloped grips for both the front and back of the battery grip. I thought this would be a win for KES. However, although RRS has a scalloped grip only for the back of the battery grip it is deeper than the KES and in practice I found the RRS held just as firmly as the KES, so that expected plus faded. The KES included a "strap tab" which I thought would be a win over RRS since I will use a strap with my R5 + battery grip + L-plate. However, this win also proved to be immaterial. It turns out this tab is unnecessary. NEITHER brand's L-Plate interfere with using any of the R5/6 camera's 3 strap lugs (2 on the top + the bottom of the battery grip). Then I thought perhaps this extra KES feature might be useful for helping secure a tethering cable. But for this the RRS has an even better feature, which I will get to. The KES does win over RRS with one feature. Both L-Plates have a QD mount on the bottom bracket, but KES also includes one on the vertical side. If having a QD mount on the left side of your camera is important that is a reason to choose KES. However, the RRS has the QD mount milled into the plate itself while KES has the mount pressed into the plate, which I deem less secure. And speaking of less secure, KES uses two bolts to secure the vertical bracket to the bottom bracket whereas RRS uses a single, solid hunk of metal that cannot come apart. Of course, if you WANT to separate the vertical bracket from the bottom you can do that with KES. The Swiss-Arca dovetail on KES is about 1/4 inch longer than RRS on the bottom bracket, which gives that much more horizontal adjustment relative to the Swiss-Arca tripod mount, although RRS is not deficient in this department. However, on RRS the bolt that holds the L-Plate to the battery grip sits in a slot that gives the bracket about 1 inch of horizontal adjustment relative to the battery grip. KES puts the bolt in a hole and offers no adjustment relative to the grip. This turns out to be a big win for RRS as I will get to in a moment. RRS offers about 1/8 longer dovetail on the vertical bracket. The first RRS feature I noticed that I deemed a big win is that the hex wrench for securing/loosening the bolt that holds the L-Plate to the BG-R10 is stowed *IN* the L-Plate, held secure with 2 magnets. (It holds the wrench securely enough that I could not shake the wrench out when it is seated all the way in and gripped by both magnets.) This means you will ALWAYS have the wrench with you to snug or remove the L-Plate from the battery grip. KES provides a wrench but if you forget to take it with you or lose it, you are out of luck until you get another one. This alone is a good reason to choose RRS. A second RRS feature that I deem a clear & convincing win concerns the ability to secure a tethering cable to the camera. I tried using the KES strap tab and vertical bracket QD hole along with wire twisties to tie (and thus secure) my tethering cable to my R5. It worked, sort of. I ran the cable alongside those two points and used the twisties to hold the cable fast. The two drawbacks are (1) It is difficult to tighten twisties tight enough not to slip on the strap lug or in the QD hole; and (2) It requires always having twisties with you. Lose or break them and you have no means of holding the tethering cable secure. In contrast, RRS provides an ever-present, rock-solid way to secure the tethering cable. (Note: In his 4-star review Steven complained, "I wish they made these things with built-in ability to attach a tethering cable." The good news is THEY DO!) I discovered the RRS is mounted to the camera with a bolt that slides in a track, thus allowing a bit of range of motion for how close or far from the camera the vertical side of the L-Plate sits from the camera body. If you are shooting tethered to a computer you can mount the RRS L-Plate to the camera loosely, thread your tether cable between the vertical bracket and the camera body (from lens side to back side works best) at the groove where the battery grip joins the camera body (it fits perfectly), plug in the cable, and then slide the vertical bracket snugly against the camera body and tighten the bolt that secures the L-plate to the camera. The result is RRS will snugly secure your tether cable to the camera. (You would break the cable before you pulled the cable out of the camera.) The third reason I chose RRS over KES is it is *FAR* more comfortable to handhold in portrait orientation. While you would normally use an L-Plate when attaching a camera to a tripod, I sometimes temporarily detach my camera from the tripod to grab some quick shots, handheld. I tried quickly grabbing both brands to test the comfort when handholding. I discovered KES is actually *PAINFUL* to hold in the portrait orientation--so much so that when I squeezed the vertical grip hard, I actually cried "OW!" out loud. (This happened on 5 different tests over 2 days. And this reason alone was enough to rule out KES.) While RRS isn't exactly comfortable in the same position, it didn't hurt me when squeezing hard in portrait orientation. I discovered that KES' bottom dovetail bracket is thicker than RRS'. This means the *edge* of the dovetail sits further from the battery grip and unfortunately causes it to dig into your palm when you squeeze it tightly--as you might when quickly grabbing the camera for a fleeting off-tripod shot. Thus, I found to my surprise that RRS proved the better choice for me.