Fixing A Hole

Photographers, do you recognize this little thing:

Hint #1: It costs about 40 cents.

Hint #2: If it breaks, it can prevent you from properly using your expensive long lens.

When preparing to shoot an NBA playoff game yesterday, this little thing came out of the tripod collar of my Nikon 300mm f2.8 lens. I could no longer attach a monopod and had to handhold the lens for the entire game.

Today I took the lens to Nikon to have a new “threaded insert” put into the lens tripod hole. I’ve had this done with a few other long lenses over the past 25 years and Nikon always did the repair for free in a few minutes. But not this time.

The first two Nikon service people had no idea what I was talking about. Apparently they’ve never seen this part before even though all Nikon lenses with tripod collars have this insert. After discussing it with the parts department, their conclusion was that Nikon no longer stocks the part and couldn’t repair the lens. They suggested I find a third-party camera repair shop.

The third-party camera repair shop I found is called Canadian Tire.

The needed tool size is 1/4-20 and the threaded, stainless steel inserts are UNC 1/4–20 x 1.5D.

The 1/4–20 thread size should be familiar to photographers. The 1.5D refers to the 0.375″ length, or depth, of the insert. This depth may vary from lens to lens. Some lenses like my 70-200mm f2.8 seem to use the shorter 1D size (0.25″). I don’t know if any lenses use inserts longer than 0.375″.

Adding a new insert to my lens took about 30 seconds. Just use the tool to carefully screw in a new insert.

You might decide to break off the tang (see photo below), and this may be necessary if your tripod or monopod screw goes right through the hole. Otherwise you might decide to leave the tang in place.

Having an insert inside the tripod hole means that when, not if, the threads get worn or damaged, the insert can be replaced quickly and cheaply rather than having to tap or re-drill the hole or having to replace the entire tripod mount. (The toolkit mentioned above comes with a tapping tool and some of the other kits come with a drill bit.)

I don’t expect Nikon to stock parts for every product it has ever made. But there’s no reason not to have a common and very inexpensive part like this on hand. A bag of 1/4–20 inserts costs about $40 per hundred. It takes only a minute to replace a threaded insert in a telephoto lens and it can really help a photographer who owns a multi-thousand-dollar lens.