paramender 2 or 3 ?

[Neil Grant]

...anyone with experience of both of these? Any preference? Can they be used with a quick release plate? Thanks if you can advise.

 

[MattKing]

I have both a paramender 1 and a paramender 3.
Both require some sort of additional equipment to use them with a quick release plate. They do however both make use of the Mamiya locating pins, which certainly helps.
Both use a 1/4" tripod thread to connect to the tripod head or legs. If your tripod legs use a 3/8" thread to connect the legs to a head the paramender 3 won't work.
The paramender 3 is a substantial piece of equipment - definitely not light! It works very smoothly though.
On the paramender 3 the lever that you use to move the camera up the required distance is a somewhat large, heavy duty plastic lever that is molded around a metal connection to the mechanism. It is somewhat vulnerable in that if the head falls it can end up taking the impact when the whole thing hits the ground. On mine, that happened and the lever broke. I was able to repair mine.
The paramender head tilts back and forth/up and down, but doesn't tilt side to side. A leveling base might be something to look at. I just adjust the individual legs of the tripod.

 

[Neil Grant]

..that was my thinking with the PM3: use it on a video tripod where the head sits in a cup. Otherwise you've got a 'head-upon-head' arrangement which is a bit clumsy. Thanks for the info