Source for an accessory shoe?

[David R Munson]

I'm not sure if this is the right forum for this, but then weird DIY questions always seem a bit out of place, no matter where one puts them...

Anyway, does anyone know where I could find just a plain, unaccompanied accessory shoe? It is my intention to find one, drill and tap two tiny holes in the top of my Canon 7, and add a shoe so I can use an external finder for wide lenses. I suppose the easiest way would be to just take one off of a dead camera of some sort, but all my funky old junker cameras got scrapped before I moved abroad. Does anyone have one just lying around by any chance?

I've never thought about trying to find something like this before. I have no idea where to start.

 

[rxmd]

Does anyone have one just lying around by any chance?

I've never thought about trying to find something like this before. I have no idea where to start.

Get a hot shoe adapter like this and take off the shoe:

I bought ten of them bulk off eBay for 1 EUR once. Been using them for finders, flash units and all sorts of things. You can usually find some in those small items boxes in photo stores.

Alternatively you can take the shoe off a trashed camera.

Sending one from Germany is slightly absurd because of the postage, but if you absolutely can't find any drop me a message.

 

[Argenticien]

Wherever you source them, be sure you can see a large enough view (such as that in the Adorama item rxmd showed above) before ordering, so as to discern whether they've got the usual leaf springs that are essential to holding in accessories. I bought a cheap, off-brand L-bracket once where the accessory shoe at the top has no leaf springs, so accessories tend to leap out (unless shimmed to wedge them in there, which is a nuisance).
--Dave

 

[David R Munson]

Good point about the leaf springs. Makes total sense, but it hadn't crossed my mind.

 

[ZorkiKat]

How about making a tiny brace which mounts from the back instead of the side? The brace will span the height of the camera, support the shoe on top, and then at the bottom, extend a bit until it reaches the tripod nut?

Drilling the top of the Canon 7 to bolt a shoe there may not be possible. Shoes need to be anchored to the main plate. The Canon 7 top plate, if I remember it right, is rather thin metal.

 

[David R Munson]

Well, it would only need to hold an accessory viewfinder. I could attach it a bit more firmly with some inside reinforcement if necessary. I'm not too concerned about keeping it pristine in a collector sense of things.

I thought about the bracket thing, but given the location of the tripod mount, I'm not sure how well it could be done without becoming unweildy.

As an alternate solution, I suppose I could fabricate a small l-bracket that the shoe would mount on, and affix the angle of the bracket over the back edge of the top of the camera using high-strength mounting tape. The tape would likely be plenty strong to deal with the minor weight of the finder, and it would be easily reversible as well. I'm just trying to figure out a reasonable way to use an accessory finder on a body without a shoe.

 

[Sparrow]

If you punch the holes with a tapered spike instead of drilling, the edges will then burr enough to take a thread, you only need two turns to be stronger than the screw, the shoe itself will then stiffen the plate but if you want to be sure put a thin film of epoxy on the inside

 

[rxmd]

I'm just trying to figure out a reasonable way to use an accessory finder on a body without a shoe.

- Put some Velcro on top of the camera and attach the finder to that. No irreversible modification to the camera.

- Who said a finder has to be on top? Attach the finder to the bottom of the camera instead of the top by means of a small bracket that screws into the tripod mount and puts an accessory shoe underneath the lens mount - no need to drill holes, and less parallax because it is closer to the lens.

Philipp