Manfrotto 233B for the rebel with grip?

[DocFrankenstein]

I don't have the grip for the Drebel yet and I haven't held the bracket in my hands, so I have a 3 questions:

What does the grip look like in the vertical position?
Do I need some kind of plate to be able to mount a flash on the bracket?
Do I need to buy a separate ballhead to be able to align the lens and the flash?
Will this bracket make the grip useless?

Thank you.

BTW: I read this post and just didn't wanna go OT in there.
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=57697

[Tom W]

Doc, I"m afraid that you will need a separate ballhead if you want to put the flash directly above the lens. Here's a shot of mine, with the ballhead from my tabletop tripod mounted on it. Unfortunately, this reduces the value of the handle.

http://www.pbase.com/photosbytom/image/39724204.jpg

You can rotate the bracket and put the upright shaft right behind the camera, but it renders the viewfinder useless.

I haven't worked with all the available positions with this bracket yet.

[DocFrankenstein]

You can rotate the bracket and put the upright shaft right behind the camera, but it renders the viewfinder useless.
Block the viewfinder? How?

Suppose we have a grip... is it possible to rotate that thing in such a way so that we can use the release in the grip as it was intended?

IE the camera is not upside down?

[Tom W]

Well, if you rotate the bottom so that the upright is behind instead of beside the camera, it will be directly behind the viewfinder. But it will be aligned over the lens.

As for the grip, I'm not sure since I don't know what the Dreb grip looks like. But, I will say that this mounts to the tripod screw hole, so if you can use the Dreb grip release while on a tripod, you can use it with this.

[DocFrankenstein]

http://consumer.usa.canon.com/app/images/d_eos/1dsmarkii_586x225.jpg
The rebel with a grip is almost the same as this thing ^^^ ;)

It seems like you won't be able to reach the grip shutter button... or at least you won't be able to use it properly.

[Tom W]

Yeah, there's going to be a lump over the bottom of the camera since this attaches to the tripod mount screw. You can swing the bracket around to the other side of the camera to get the light where you want it, but you're going to have to put your hand over the bottom part of the bracket either way if you're using the grip release. (I didn't know that a battery grip with release was available for the DReb - glad it is though).

Hadn't thought of that issue when I bought it - still had the 10D though, and with no Big Ed grip.

[DocFrankenstein]

I'll have to try it out in the store.

[Tom W]

I'll have to try it out in the store.

Good move - I wish we had a suitable store here.