Sima Quick Connect for Tripod

This item is functional, barely. It's OK for use with a lightweight camera and standard lens in horizontal position only. With a longer lens and/or vertical position this plastic unit feels underbuilt with a sagging problem in the vertical position. Spend a few bucks and get an all-metal Bogen product, you'll be happier.

I have a canon f2 and, with age, I cannot hold it as steady as I would like. I bought a travel tripod, small and light enough to carry easily, but mounting the camera to the tripod was awkward and time consuming. The Sima quick connect solved my problem, and makes it a lot easier to take the kind of pictures a tourist usually takes.

I have used a couple of these Sima quick releases for years and they work very well. Naturally, I have lost half of one the sets. Local camera shops have stopped carrying them, so when I saw the Sima here I bought another to supplement the one I still have. I keep the male half on my camera and another on the foot of my telephoto, with the big half on a tripod. I like these much better than the expensive metal ones made by Arca and Manfrotto.

This quick connect gadget works the way it is supposed to and is a pretty good value. It allows me to use my monopod as a walking stick and quickly attach my camera. As my camera has the battery/SD card compartment on the bottom, I have to remove the quick connect to access either. That's my main quibble with the Sima. It attaches with a slotted screw head. A dime works well as a screwdriver, but my last quick connect used a hinged key head that allowed me to attach and disconnect it without tools.

Most outings my battery and card last long enough but occasionally they don't and I would like to not have to have a tool with me to remove the quick connect from the camera, especially on really cold days.

Excellent unit very solidly built and designed. The unit seems very durable, but is still light and small. Basically, reminded me of a hockey puck. Works flawlessly for what I need it to do. The inner piece is so small, that I leave it on my camera when I take it off the mount and put it in my pocket. It works excellent with both my Sony Cybershot and Panasonic SDR-H200.

Also, I did have a question to how the unit worked. It seemed obvous that the unit just screws on to a mount, but there are no pictures of the bottom of the product. It does in fact, screw onto an existing mount as there is a hole on the bottom with screw threads that allow it to screw onto whatever your camera will screw onto. As long as what you are trying to mount it onto has no obstruction around the screw you are trying to place it onto, it will fit on just about anything that a camera or camcorder will mount onto.

The removable middle piece was designed so that the screw and the pin next to the screw can be tightened, loosened, or removed with a screwdriver. So you just place the quick release on the bottom of your camera and tighten the screw and the pin, instead of having to twist the camera onto the unit.