Ronin 4D after four and a half years: the two things I fixed myself

[NIX_Film]

I've shot documentaries on the Ronin 4D for four and a half years now, from Senegal to Greenland. I still love it. Two things bugged me the whole time.

The tripod. The 4D has no good bottom, and getting it on and off a tripod quickly and reliably never really worked for me. So I designed a base plate with a dovetail for the Manfrotto quick release system. It drops onto a normal tripod head and comes off again in seconds.

The microphone. The obvious spot for a proper mic is above the motors. So I built a bracket that holds two Rode NT5s as a stereo pair.

Full disclosure: these are my own parts and I'm going to sell them. The plate is still a prototype and only gets made if enough people pre-order.

I made a video about both, with a long take from Senegal and a beer bottle test for the stereo pair:

 

Curious how others here solved the tripod and the audio on theirs.

[eatstoomuchjam]

I skimmed the video for now, will watch more in-depth later.

The tripod plate looks pretty nice.  I'm surprised there's no obstruction of the bottom sensors.  It looks like they're at least partially blocked.  If you decide to do an Arca-Swiss version instead of Manfrotto, I could be interested to give it a try.

The way I do tripod plates now is that I have the pgytech beetle clip (Arca-compatible) from their backpack on the front tripod mount and a slightly longer Arca-Swiss plate on the rear one.  It's not perfect, but especially with a longer clamp, I can usually balance the camera decently.  My biggest headache tends to be the anti-slide screws on the rear Arca plate.  Someday, I'll get annoyed enough to remove them.

As for the microphone, I'm usually MOS, working with a sound engineer and syncing in post, or using lavs hooked up to a DJI mic 2 on the talent.  Your solution looks pretty good, but still seems like there's some danger of the mics getting in frame when the camera is pointed down, especially with a wider lens.  The microphone mount on the front of the plate also seems to block the release to detach the head for use with Flex.  Plus they don't seem to have an option for a shock mount - don't you pick up some vibration noise?  If it were me, I'd be inclined to just set up a shotgun mic mount that sits further back on the handle.