Sam Bennett
Veteran Member
Just got one of the Yuwood grips in the mail. Nice little piece! Unlike cheaper plates of gotten off eBay, it came will a little hardshell case, Allen key for taking off the grip, etc. I won’t call this a “review”, but thought some might be curious on my experience with it (for my peculiar use).
It’s a pretty well thought out design. They’ve clearly tried to make it as small as possible, electing to not go with a “recessed” design like you would see with RRS brackets. You can really see in the profile where they’ve made the base as narrow as possible, fitting right underneath the tapered portion of the body, without added thickness for the screen. This also means it’s pretty light - only about 46g which is only 2g heavier than the plate for my E-P7 that is significantly smaller.
The wood of the grip is nice, but I was a little disappointed that the screw threads appear to be pressed in, not screwed - as I found out when I unscrewed it and one of the thread inserts unscrewed with it. I would be a little concerned about these pulling out inadvertently with “too much” pressure applied.
Anti-twist comes through a few features - the little “feet” on the bottom of the camera have recessed spots on the grip - one of which also sits on a little rubber mat.
On the back of the camera, there is a larger “tang” that provides more stability. And of course, the grip itself helps keep the plate in place. However, removing the grip still results in a pretty solid connection between the two, so I would not hesitate to shave it off if I decide I don’t want to use the grip.
Why would I do that? Because I primarily got this plate to tap it with a 1/4-20 on the back of the plate for a Spider Pin so I can use this with a Spider Holster (far and away my favorite way to carry a small camera). Sadly, I don’t think this will be possible without compromising the plate so much I would be afraid of the action of pulling the camera in/out of the holster eventually cracking the plate. The other plates I’ve done this with have about 8.4mm of material to drill/tap. This has only 6.4mm. The threads of a 1/4-20 screw are about 6.1mm. Even I am not willing to take that risk.
Unfortunately the plate itself is not threaded all the way through the plate. This means you may not have enough thread for some accessories - the Spider Pin, for instance, doesn’t fit:
I’ll either tap this the rest of the way through, or simply add a washer to fill the gap. This may end up being the way I “wear” the camera until I can find a thicker plate to tap:
I just don’t like this way because beyond it being awkward to place on a flat surface, it also means the camera can rotate while in the holster, unlike this kind of setup which is much more stable overall:
Long story short, this seems to be a good quality, well thought out piece. I would caution anyone getting it about the strength of the grip itself but I will update this thread if it ends up truly being an issue or not.
Here’s a link to the plate:
Let me know if you’ve got any questions!
--
Sam Bennett
Instagram: @swiftbennett
It’s a pretty well thought out design. They’ve clearly tried to make it as small as possible, electing to not go with a “recessed” design like you would see with RRS brackets. You can really see in the profile where they’ve made the base as narrow as possible, fitting right underneath the tapered portion of the body, without added thickness for the screen. This also means it’s pretty light - only about 46g which is only 2g heavier than the plate for my E-P7 that is significantly smaller.
The wood of the grip is nice, but I was a little disappointed that the screw threads appear to be pressed in, not screwed - as I found out when I unscrewed it and one of the thread inserts unscrewed with it. I would be a little concerned about these pulling out inadvertently with “too much” pressure applied.
Anti-twist comes through a few features - the little “feet” on the bottom of the camera have recessed spots on the grip - one of which also sits on a little rubber mat.
On the back of the camera, there is a larger “tang” that provides more stability. And of course, the grip itself helps keep the plate in place. However, removing the grip still results in a pretty solid connection between the two, so I would not hesitate to shave it off if I decide I don’t want to use the grip.
Why would I do that? Because I primarily got this plate to tap it with a 1/4-20 on the back of the plate for a Spider Pin so I can use this with a Spider Holster (far and away my favorite way to carry a small camera). Sadly, I don’t think this will be possible without compromising the plate so much I would be afraid of the action of pulling the camera in/out of the holster eventually cracking the plate. The other plates I’ve done this with have about 8.4mm of material to drill/tap. This has only 6.4mm. The threads of a 1/4-20 screw are about 6.1mm. Even I am not willing to take that risk.
Unfortunately the plate itself is not threaded all the way through the plate. This means you may not have enough thread for some accessories - the Spider Pin, for instance, doesn’t fit:
I’ll either tap this the rest of the way through, or simply add a washer to fill the gap. This may end up being the way I “wear” the camera until I can find a thicker plate to tap:
I just don’t like this way because beyond it being awkward to place on a flat surface, it also means the camera can rotate while in the holster, unlike this kind of setup which is much more stable overall:
Long story short, this seems to be a good quality, well thought out piece. I would caution anyone getting it about the strength of the grip itself but I will update this thread if it ends up truly being an issue or not.
Here’s a link to the plate:
Let me know if you’ve got any questions!
--
Sam Bennett
Instagram: @swiftbennett
