KIWIFOTOS FC-1II Professional 4-Way Macro Focusing Rail Slider with Arca Swiss Quick Release Plate

I am happy with my puchase , delivery was fast and quality of item is as expected.

First the not so good news! With the example I received I had trouble mounting the Arca Swiss clamp plate. As received one of the screws did not sit properly into the countersunk recess presumably because the anodising had reduced to diameter to less than the screw head diameter. This meant that the screw had less than one full thread to engage in the mating part. The screw that did fit into the recess was only a little better as can be seen from the photos that I am including with this review. Fortunately I had an 8mm countersink bit (8.3mm would be fine and is a readily available size) and was able to deepen and widen the recesses a little with the objective of obtaining maximum engagement of the threads in the mating blind threaded holes. I went to the point where the screws bottomed out and then filed a little off the end of the screws so that they would fully tighten. If the rail that you receive is anything like mine and you don't make this modification then be very careful when you tighten these screws because you will strip the treads out if you push your luck.End of bad news!Others have commented about the grease, mine did not have an excess and grease is an appropriate choice of lubricant for this application, oil or WD40 are, in my opinion, really not suitable alternatives. If you would prefer not to have the grease then thoroughly remove it using a suitable solvent such as IPA or acetone and replace with a spray on PTFE dry film lubricant (this will require some dismantling). I am staying with the grease.Once you have all of this sorted you will be left with a really nice robust piece of kit with a very smooth mechanism that should last for years, despite the initial grief assembling it I am now very happy with this product.I marked it down on ease of use purely because of the assembly issues that I had but it is worth a little trouble.

After looking at all the different (or same?) models and reading a lot of reviews here in amazon and otherwise, I decided for the KIWIFOTOS since I did find professional and practical reviews online and all pretty much were positive. It seems that there are also other rails out there that either look the same or similar but have not got the quality this one has.I was right to do so. The product is built well, very sturdy and can handle a Nikon D800e with either the 105mm 2.8VR, the 105mm f4 Ai-s or the Nikkor 200mm f4 plus a Sigma Macro-Ringflash set with ease. Minimal assembly required in the beginning, nothing to worry about ( total of 4 small screws ). The product arrived well packaged.You just need to get used to find the right balance and position for your gear and make sure that the fastening screws are on the spot - then you have a perfect and accurate adjustment without any tolerance.For serious macro work recommended.

Well built and does the job but 2 problems.1. the track adjusters are very difficult to turn2. Grease all over the tracks - you have to be very careful not to get itall over you while adjusting things.Depending on setup this could be a serious camera contamination issue.How you design your workplace will affect this so needs care.

The rail is well made. It has very fine and smooth movements. There is no slippage in vertical orientation once tightened down. For macro or close up work it's perfect. You can spend a lot more money on rails but this one is well capable of doing the job.

I have been using this with my macro photography and also with the lightbox on a vertical with no slip or drag. You do need to assist the camera on retracting, if on vertical but that's to be expected. Very good build.

Great piece of equipment