Tuesday, July 10, 2018

Gear Review - Think Tank Photo Camera Clip Adapter 3.0

Think Tank Photo recently refreshed their popular modular component system and sent us a couple of items for review.  Since wedding season has just gotten underway, we had the chance to take these out into the field to see how they compare to previous versions.

This is the Camera Clip Adapter v3.0 which is a padded support to be used with either the Peak Design Capture Camera Clip or the SpiderPro/SpiderLight Camera Holster system.


Both Peak Design and Spider holster make their own versions of padded supports for their systems and I've used all of them.


Here's the Think Tank Camera Clip Adapter V3.0 compared to the Peak Design Pro Pad v2.  As you can see, the Think Tank padding is much more substantial.


Even though I'm a big fan of Peak Design and own almost all of the products they have launched, they tend to lean more on aesthetics rather than functionality.  Below is the Think Tank compared to both v1 and v2 of the Peak Design Pro Pads.


Peak Design's original Pro Pad also gave you the choice of horizontal/vertical mounting, but their latest version (v2) only allows horizontal mounting.


One of the benefits of the Think Tank version is even though the packaging shows the Peak Design Capture Clip mounts horizontally, the Peak Design Capture Clips (both V2 and V3) can be mounted in either vertical or horizontal configurations.



The Think Tank Capture Clip Adapter also has more padding than the Spider Holster Pad.


There is one thing that I need to point out - when I first received the Think Tank Camera Clip Adapter for this review, I noticed two small vertical stitches on the Pad which were not on the example photo of the packaging:

These stitches prevented the Spider Holster from seating in all the way.


I contacted Justin at Think Tank Photo's customer service and was told this was probably a manufacturing defect and so they shipped out a replacement right away.  Unfortunately the replacement had the exact same stitching.


So I contacted Justin again and was assured that this was also a defect - those two stitches are not supposed to be there.  They are currently looking into this issue and he assured me this this issue will be corrected.

Instead of waiting for them to send a second replacment, and in order to get this review out in a timely manner, what I ended up doing was use a knife to carefully cut away the two stitching errors.


Once that was done, the Spiderholster slid in all the way and fit snugly against the pad like it is supposed to.


Let me be clear - I do NOT recommend doing this modification on your own as you could very easily injure yourself if you're not careful. If your Camera Clip Adapter has these stitching errors, notify Think Tank Photo's customer service for a replacement.

Using the Think Tank Capture Clip Adapter V3.0 with a gripped Sony a7rii and a 70-200mm lens on several wedding and model shoots, it made a world of difference compared to the Peak Design pad or the Spider Holster Pad.  There's just no comparison - it beats them by a mile.


After using the Think Tank Photo Camera Clip Adapter 3.0 for two weeks, my verdict is this:

Don't even bother with either the Peak Design Pro Pad or SpiderHolster's pad and just get this. If you use the Think Tank belt system with either the Spider Holster or Peak Design Capture Clip, the Think Tank Capture Clip Adapter v3.0 is definitely a must have.

If you found this review helpful, please consider using the links on this page to visit the Think Tank website.  A small percentage of the sale goes toward helping us keep this blog going so that we can continue to do these reviews for you.

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