I'm contemplating mounting my Marshall 7" monitor directly to the camera, using one of those hot shoe ball heads (like the Manfrotto 482 LCD). However - watching how the whole mic compartment bends under the (lesser) weight of my Comer 1800 lamp - I'm a bit concerned about both the plastic enclosure, and internal electronis of this particular area of the EX1...

Does anyone use the EX1's original hot shoe for devices as bulky and heavy as the 7" Marshall? If so, what's your experience?

TIA for comments/opinions

Piotr

Don't recommend it.

One of the best solutions is to get a baseplate for the camera that has the option for some side mounts or is taped on the sides with some 1/4-20 holes. Use that to mount the monitor with a magic arm or similar.

The EX1r has a 1/4-20 thread on the rear of the top handle that is strong enough to use the SmallHD DP6 on it. I wouldn't try that trick with the forward shoe even on my camera either.

May I add that there's a thread on one of new Manfrotto heads which allows you to put the monitor on one of their adjustable arms , so it's next to the camera but not putting any weight on it. For me the benefit is that we can whip the camera off the head and on to a Fig Rig without having to unmount a monitor etc first.

One of the best options I've seen so far is an arm that is designed to screw into one of the unused threaded pan/tilt arm fixtures found on many tripod heads. This would be the "rosette" or toothed fitting which would provide an extremely solid threaded attachment point and allow the camera to be removed from the tripod quickly. Unfortunately, one of the best ones I've ever seen was on the VFGadgets site and the link now appears to be dead. Do some searching around and you might find something similar.

Something similar, and ingeniously simple, comes from Olof (as always:):

CineArm Bracket for holding monitor on tripod head using existing tapped hole for arm. (http://www.westsideavstore.com/index.php?p=product&id=17&parent=1)