I bought a new photo gadget that totally revolutionized some old photo gadgets I already owned. Here is the entire rig:
On the left is a Manfrotto Super Clamp, I bought it decades ago. It had a brass stud and mini ball head to attach a camera, but I lost them somehow. I also recently bought a Glif, the bracket on the right end. It’s a clip to mount an iPhone to a tripod. I tested it but it didn’t work very well, using a tiny phone camera on my tripod made for large format cameras. Maybe the Glif would work better with the Super Clamp, if only I hadn’t lost the parts.
I looked online for replacements and instead, I found this interesting Manfrotto Heavy Duty Flex Arm. It has a hex stud to mount in the Super Clamp at one end, 20 inches of flexible extension arm, and a 1/4″ tripod head at the end.
Now all I really need is a mini ball head to make it easier to swivel the Glif and iPhone camera into position. A cheap one will do, I bought this for $7. It’s not a very good swivel head but the matching Manfrotto 494 is $65, this will have to do.
It’s really easy to clamp this anywhere and bend the arm into place. I clamped it on my old photo enlarger and it makes a great copy stand. The 20″ extension puts the camera out in the middle of my work table so I can copy huge originals, like a tabloid 11×17 double spread. Here is a pic of the rig clamped to my kitchen cabinet, I used a paper towel to avoid clamp marks. Oh no this looks like a setup for coffee demo videos.
After I got this rig and used it a while, I discovered it had another uniquely useful function. I clamped it to my bed’s headboard, to hold up my iPhone so I can watch video in bed.