5D Mk II L Bracket w/ space for cable release

thingiverse

When searching for an L Bracket for my 5D Mk II, all I could find were $60 and up versions by RRS and similarly expensive brands. Unwilling to pay that much for a glorified chunk of aluminum, I decided to try some designs out from Thingiverse. Empiricus's design was the one that worked best for me. It's very rigid, has arca swiss rails that fit my ball head on both sides, and is specifically designed to fit the 5D2. After taking it out shooting, it worked really well. The only thing I didn't like was that I couldn't use my cable release. So for longer telephoto shots, I was using a 10 second timer to let vibrations settle down from pushing the shutter release, or else I'd end up with horrible motion blur. So I took his STL, imported it into Blender, and manhandled it into a shape slightly more conducive to use with this specific cable release (although it will likely work on others as well): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00C0K2PQU I filled in the 1/4 20 hole on the short side of the L, and cut out a slot for the cable release to plug in. I then slightly thickened the shorter side of the L so that the plug would sit comfortably below the arca swiss rail when plugged in, and not cause problems with sliding it into place on my ballhead. I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't seem to lose any rigidity or strength even with the large cutout. The ability of my ballhead to grip the short side rails is also unaffected, despite the slight change in angle. This L bracket is now the ideal tool for my use.