I borrowed Keith Loh's excellent 503 head Manfrotto tripod (thank's again Keith!) this past weekend. However, to my dismay, the mounting plate, when attached to my Cavision rod mounted matte box, would not mount on the tripod head. The rod support prevented the tripod place from sliding into it's groove. The tripod plate will not slide backwards into it's groove from the front of the head.


Is there a way to make this work? This is the tripod I wanted to buy, but obviously won't if I can't use my matte box with it.

you stick the sliding plate on the lower tier of the mattebox assembly.

actually the balancing is better this way, as the designers intended it to be attached.

otherwise an improperly balanced setup will put extra wear on the teflon brakes in the fluid head and make moves a bit more front heavy and awkward.

I have a 501 head and it works great.

I may be slow, but I can't find anywhere else to attach the trpod plate on the rod mount plate.

too bad they dont have any instructions for mounting the ca-vision matte box.

I got mine used, no instructions. The setup is pretty straightforward though.

It doesn't ship with any instructions. which is a negative. Setting it up is straight forward for the most part, except mounting the tripod plate to it's plate.

funny, because on mine there's a threaded hole to take the fastener, as well as another for the locater stud. They should be on the plate that the rods lock into. Make sure you have the tightening screw on that plate pointing up... you might have that reversed which is the only thing I can think of. Otherwise, I'd get the part replaced with one that does.

<<<-- Originally posted by Dylan Couper : I may be slow, but I can't find anywhere else to attach the trpod plate on the rod mount plate. -->>>

Can you post some pictures of your setup? I am going to post some pictures of mine.