Vocas Introduces Tailor-Made Sony FS7 II Baseplate and Accessories

News

by Tim FokFebruary 2^nd, 2017

Vocas has released a new set of accessories for the Sony FS7 II and Sony FS7. The announcement sees a new top plate with rail support, PL mount with top-lock security and new FS7 II / FS7 baseplate design including Vocas Sliding System support.

It’s hard to keep up with announcements like these as every manufacturer has their own way of doing things, but Vocas has hit a few nails on the head here. Although it still needs a few tweaks in terms of ergonomics, the FS7 isn’t a badly designed camera, and is much closer to a finished solution than the likes of the tall EOS C100/300/500. This is, of course, a subjective opinion, but the FS7 is a longer body that sits on the shoulder better as well as being good for tripod work.

The arc on the underside of the camera always needs attention. Sony put it here to account for the in-built shoulder pad, but without adjustment it is fairly useless.

Vocas has responded well here, designing their baseplates to compliment the contour of the body, but with a larger adjustable shoulder pad. Quite a few manufacturers choose this contour method for the FS7 and FS7 II – it does a good job in getting a shoulder pad in there without adding too much bulk and height to the camera system.

The Vocas FS7II/FS7 baseplate comes in three flavours. The standard older Vocas FS7 baseplate is a pretty basic 15mm, contouring shape design with fixed rosette support in the front. You can add a block on the back for 15mm rod application.

The Mark II baseplate utilizes a further 3 screws underneath the original FS7 pad for security and has a built in 15mm rod support on the back.

The third from Vocas is the USBP 15 MKII. This is a split design, straight baseplate with contouring wedge to sit on the camera side. The advantage here is the slide lock plate system between the wedge and flat baseplate. It’s compatible with all of the Vocas Sliding Systems, meaning it can quick-release onto any of their other supported products:

Next onto their top plate. This is one of those products I can see becoming a must for all FS7 users, just like the Shape extension arm. The plate overhangs the existing top handle, maintaining native connection with the camera for the top buttons and hot shoe. It offers a cheeseplate array and straight-through 15mm rods for support at the front and rear.

An intuitive feature of this product is the integration of the PL mount. E mount, like its EF counterpart, provides a pretty weak connection with the body. Add a PL mount and heavier PL lens and you can really feel play in the joint between the adaptor and the body. Sony addressed this with the FS7II and its locking E mount mechanism, but FS7 users still have the lens-wobble problem.

Many manufactures solve this by adding an adaptor lock to their mount adaptors, usually fixing to your camera via 15mm rods and therefore forcing you to increase the size of your rig. The Vocas system locks from the top plate, meaning you can choose when to scale up your camera system and, more importantly, choose when to keep it small.

Camera rigging is generally quite a subjective topic. Each configuration works best for individual needs, but I’m keen to hear what accessories you find indispensable for the FS7.