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This fluid head was one of a number of heads, tripods and accessories that were all procured brand new to set up a lab for some critical measurements. The project did not secure funding, so the lab is being dismantled and all the gear is being sold. Please see my other listings for several tripods, ball heads, geared heads, clamps, plates, brackets and other accessories from companies such as Gitzo, FLM, Novoflex, Really Right Stuff and Leofoto.

The iFootage Komodo K5 has been a popular entry-level fluid head for vidographers and wildlife / action photographers with medium-long telephoto lenses.  The Komodo fluid heads are much better finished than low-end Manfrotto fluid heads, with superior finish and haptics.

This K5 head was mounted exactly once on a leveling base, as you can see from the three small circular marks on the base of the head. It was mainly tested for different plate and clamp combinations, and it was never actually used for any real work.

The K5 comes with the industry-standard video plate that was set by fluid head pioneers like Manfrotto and Sachtler. Problem is, photographers have standardized on the 38mm Arca-Swiss plates and clamps as the standard. So photographers who are occasional video shooters prefer Arca Swiss compatibility. However, simply attaching an Arca Swiss clamp to the video clamp is not easy! With the clamp, the plate needs to be slide up and down for its full range of movement and setting positions, and not all photography clamps allow this. 

So a number of clamps were evaluated with the OEM plate over several weeks to convert it to Arca-Swiss compatibility. The tested clamps included Really Right Stuff, Hejnar, Kirk and FLM. We finally selected an FLM QLB-80 lever clamp for this K5, and the clamp was also purchased new. This clamp is light weight but extremely robust, is long, has a lever operation for quick mounting and dismounting of cameras or lenses, and has a fine-tune adjustment screw that gets around minor variations in supposedly Arca-Swiss compatible plates.  The clamp alone costs $82, and we had to spend $20+ on multiple screws from Amazon to finally find the screws that worked for this marriage.

You can buy a K5 head cheaper for its list price of $138, but if you want it Arca-Swiss compatible, then the QLB-80 is the very best choice for this head, and it will cost a total of $220 for you to by the clamp and the plate, then you will have to spend some money buying different screws and testing what it works. Or you can buy this for a little discount, with free shipping.

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PLEASE READ THE FINE PRINT

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