Sachtler vs. Zacuto vs. FOTGA -- or Why the HECK Would Someone Spend Five to Ten Times as Much on a Freakin' Baseplate When You Can Get a Perfectly Usable One for $60? THIS is Why.

This is why it makes sense to find the optimal compromise between price and performance for the core components of your gear (camera and lenses): you're going to need a pile more dough for everything else. But "pile" is a relative term. Welcome to episode 2 of what I'm now calling our Goldilocks series, where this time we look at baseplates - a category I used to think was beyond mundane. I was wrong.

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