Modified verticalgrip for 5D (15 picts!)

Now it has been done again. One more 5D has got a verticalgrip.

After getting inspiration from my friends 7D + vertical grip, and reading all about such made for 5D, i was planning to replicate the Canon mod made Ari Aikomus.
Then i saw a BP-400 grip in a local home electronics store, and immediately bought it for 3€.



So much for the story behind the making, i just got it very cheap. So yesterday me and Hymy started to take the thing apart. 7 screws on the top metalplate, 4 on the tower for the battery compartment, 4 under it, 2 behind the rubber grip, 4 on the bottom, one at the handstrap pin, and 5 for the cables under the metal plate.

After all that is disasembled it looked like this:


Then after much fitting and testing we found the place for the new tripodmount screw and drilled a hole for it.



Using a dremel multi multi tool we cut a new slot for the screw to be used for tightening it. Obviously, we were very careful not to make it too large or too ugly (as with the whole project).



For the wheel/tripodscrew to spin freely inside we had to remove some plastic.



And this is how much had to be removed on the outside for the grip to fit the camera. For a better fit, a thin rubber cloth was applied later on, on the whole top surface.



The cabels for the shutter release button was cut and re-soldered to our home made plug that fits the Remote socket.The plug was made from a digital cd-rom audio cabel used in computers.



Other electric work was not needed, only figuring out what the cabel order for the shutter release button (can also be found in other topics). This means the batteries worked automatically without any modifications.

So how well does my modified grip fit on the 5D? ill let you judge:








And lastly, a few pics of me holding the cam:



PS, it is minolta ergonomics, i does feel very good in my hand. I do not regret making one.
PPS, all credits for the pictures goes to Hymy.

Edited by Anssisa - 03 July 2006 at 19:32

I regret i did not take a picture of the plug before modifying it. That white one is smaller and has the holes closer to each other than the black connector (both could be found on the cable i had). It was a chubby white plug, not a flat broad plug (have seen both). This one does not spread the pins of the 5D.

BTW, the Grip came also with a leather handstrap, sadly not shown on the pics.

Anssi

Nice work. Next step is making the drawings an modification documentation.
5D The Finish Grip!

Again it shows that if SONY have a sucess with the A-100 a third party company will supply a vertical grip.

I guess that you will get some feedback from the people that knows the 5D.



Edited by kvinaud - 03 July 2006 at 22:25

Fantastic topic. Thank you very much for sharing this.

I'm not getting the pictures. Have thet been removed?

Thanks.

Larry

Same here, unable to see any pictures.

ahh.. i have moved by mistake these pictures...
i shall se if i can find them anew from the depths of my computer. ill try to fix this asap.
If not, ill take my wertical grip apart to take new ones, tough they might not be as desciptive because its not possible to show how the piece looked before modifying.

Btw, the grip works like a charm, i have not taken it of my camera since i put it there the first time, not once. Its one of the few things that ive done that really works.