Wimberley "Plamp" review

I just received the "Plamp" from Wimberley. What a neat invention! How many times have you been all set up to photograph flowers and the wind creates havoc with your plans? The "Plamp" should help in those situations. It will steady wind-blown plants which will be a huge help in getting the best photos.

The Plamp is an articulating arm to hold subjects still. One end clamps to your tripod leg while the other grasps the object. I think it will be great to make minute adjustments in positioning to get the best light and most desirable background. It actually allows you to gently bend the flower(or such)and holds it while you shoot.

Anyway, I think this is a really neat idea. If you are impatient and don't always want to have to wait for the breeze to die down in order to take that perfect flower shot, this might be the solution! Now all we need are some Spring flowers! For more info on the Plamp, you can go right to the Wimberley site: www.tripodhead.com

Nice idea but kind of pricey just to hold something still. How about a pair of plastic clamps from the local dollar store duct taped to the ends of a piece of electrical wire, say 8-10 gauge. Bendable but stiff enough to stay where you put it. Should cost less than $5 each that way and you can make them any size you want. I think I'll have to make a couple and see how that works.

I like to carry a bit of parachute cord in my bag for temporarily pulling and tying inconvenient small limbs, etc. out of the camera's view. A walking stick can serve to do the same.

And I did. I ended up using AWG 12 electrical wire because it was what I had on hand. 8 or 10 gauge would be stronger and probably better for holding reflectors, gobos or shades. The clamp is one of a dozen I got at Big Lots 2-3 years ago in a package. I think I paid $5 for the dozen. The plant holder is a wooden spring clothespin. I figured I didn't need as big a clamp on the plant holding end and the wood might be a little more 'friendly' to the plant than metal or plastic. One problem was that when I just taped the wire to the plastic spring clamp the weight of the wire would spin it under the tape so that it always drooped downward. I fixed that by feeding the wire through a hole that was already in the clamp handle (but you could make your own if your clamp didn't already have a hole) and then tightly winding the wire around the handle using pliers to make it snug. As you can see in the photo it now stays where I put it. I'll tape over it but I left the tape off for the photo. alternatively you could attach the clamps with epoxy putty.

In this case it cost me nothing but time since I had all the parts but if you were to buy them I estimate the cost as follows:
Plastic clamp - about a dollar if you buy them singly, less if you buy a bunch (they're handy for other things too). Wooden clothespin - pennies. You can get a whole package at the Dollar Store. Wire - AWG 12 is between $1 and $2/foot for 2 wire with ground at building suppliers but there are 3 wires in the outer sheath, a black covered wire, a white covered wire and a bare wire so if you bought 2 feet you could make 3 of these. AWG 10 and 8 wire would cost more than 12 (like f/stops, smaller number = fatter wire and copper is expensive right now).

I've thought about buying a plamp, but the cost/benefit ratio just doesn't seem right.

Jim Bullard has a good idea. I'll rig up one of those. Maybe I'll decide the benefit is more than I think and I'll end up buying a plamp, but for now I'm off to make my own Bullard plant stablization device. Quck, we need a catchy name...

Pete D.

I love my plamps and use them all the time. A big plus is that they fold up to go into a camera backpack pouch.

However, it looks as if Jim's idea is a good one too. Not so sure how well they would fold up, though..

Sandy t