[Mansour] presents an interesting idea in his essay A Common Thread — just as USB-C has become the “One Connector To Rule Them All” in the world of electronics, so too should his projects have a unified physical connection layer. A common thread, if you will.
Specifically, the 1/4″-20 UNC connector that was already on all his camera equipment. Unifying his stuff around that connector wasn’t a bolt from the blue brainwave. By the sounds of it, the idea evolved over time and only became intentional after he’d already started using it.
There’s something to be said for it, though. One thing is the convenience of knowing your various bits and bobs are going to fit together like they were made with LEGO. Another is taking away a whole set of decisions in the design process: it’s going to have a 1/4″-20 UNC fitting, so [Mansour] needs only decide if its going to be tapped into the material or if he’s using an inset or captive bolt.
It isn’t like a 1/4″ bolt is going to introduce a weak point in most things we build — with good hardware it can take a ton or more. On the other hand it’s not exactly resilient to torque, but [Mansour]’s camera bag had the answer to that, too: spring loaded locator pins that drop into holes on the female side to take up the torque. In the photography world, these are AARI pins. To us they just seem like a good idea.
Maybe you don’t see the point of avoiding redesigning the wheel every time for custom mounts and brackets. After all, that lets you come up the the ideal solution every time. On the other hand, [Mansour] has both simplified his design process and made decades worth of camera-holding objects — everything from tripods to stabilizing gimbals — accessible to all his stuff. It’s an interesting idea, and his full blog post is worth a read, even if it’s not likely the EU is going to force its adoption like it did USB-C.
Isn’t the camera screw 1/4″ British Standard Whitworth?
(It is not the same as 1/4″-20 UNC but compatible.)
And it is not metric
shall we not make a standard of anything non-metric please…
Lens fittings used to be screw thread too, but they realized bayonet was much easier.
So now I wonder if we would really want a screw, I mean I find them quite fiddly, although what the camera world did as a solution is using quick release plates that you screw in the camera and the in place you want to mount a camera a receptor. But is all that really the optimal way to go I wonder.
Seems to me instead of a ‘universal screw’ standard (which de facto already exists) we should focus on a universal release plate standard, because there are now a few main contenders and then there is the occasional odd one.
Problem there though is that you want the smallest option for each situation, and that means you can’t have a single one as standard really, you might need 2 or 3, and at that point we are in the wonderful world of ‘universal USB’ where even USB-C can have half a dozen possible variations.
Oh well.
A quick release standard would be great. Quick release makes no sense as it currently is because most tripods come with only one plate. Have multiple cameras? Back to screwing around with the only plate.
There are actually multiple, very good unencumbered standards for quick release plates (insert “now we’ve got n standards” comic here).
Arca-Swiss is one: It’s a specifically-sized dovetail design that can be used in multiple directions, multiple lengths (which will be interchangeable still), and with sundry secondary features. The tripod/mount side can also have several different mechanisms for quickly-but-securely locking things in.
Manfrotto has a similar standard, and there are a couple of others; even though they were established by one company or another, they get used by a lot of manufacturers, establishing a useful ecosystem. I’m a big fan of Arca-Swiss myself, in no small part because Peak Design has some very slime-line camera plates with some convenient extra features, and a nice travel tripod that interoperates with it; while I probably have a couple dozen different AS-format plates and mounts, I don’t have a single Arca-Swiss branded one. But the geometry is imminently 3d-printable, so I’ve even got some of those.
This is pretty classic “emergent standards” situation; not as convenient as “one true standard”, but there’s so much extant buy-in, and the different systems do provide slightly-different benefits, that it doesn’t feel likely to go away any time soon. And I haven’t even mentioned the larger formats for like, video rigs; pretty sure those plates alone are heavier than some mirrorless cameras. Very different needs.
Perhaps one of the many microphone mount thread standards? Variety is the spice of life!
I own an old house and I have standardized every repair that I can to T15 cabinet screws. T25s for big repairs. Never fiddle with the wrong bit again