Cambo WRS1000 and Wooden Grips (WRS-250)

What could possibly make the Cambo WRS1000 an even better camera body?  Glad you asked.  The ability to add a set of slightly larger, slightly less weight set of wooden grips makes what I had thought to be a great camera even that much better.  The wooden grips add less than .5 inch to the total width while adding a much better hand grip.

I have had problems with the idea of shooting a tech camera handheld. My basic idea on using a tech camera was put it on a tripod and shoot from there; this sturdy platform is needed to take advantage of what the tech camera does - movements. I had experimented shooting my WRS1000 handheld several months ago while comparing it to the WDS. While it worked, it felt awkward. I've experimented shooting the WRS with the wooden grips and have found it feels much better. The feel is so much better with the new grips I'm now seeing a possibility of shooting handheld in very close/tight spaces and will attempt this next month while shooting in a couple slot canyons.

So far as I understand, Capture Integration is the only dealer offering to replace the grips on a WRS1000.  I'll admit that I nagged Dave Gallagher into letting me install my own.  I met Dave in Phoenix last week during their Capture One Pro training and after Dave informed me that he had the grips I talked him into bringing them with him. 

The installation process should be relative simple or so I thought.  Each grip is held in place by 3-screws.  To remove the original you need to gently lift up the felt/adhesive tape to reveal the crosshead screw.  Then using a PZ1 screwdriver remove each screw.  Remember, "slow is fast", in other words take it slow and do it right the first time.  What I quickly found was these screws for whatever the reason are very tight; almost to the point of being over torque which resulted in 3 of the 6 screw heads being stripped and the pucker factor being raised considerably.  What should have taken 30 minutes or less ended taking well over 2 1/2 hours as I had to very slowly drill each stripped screw head out.  Luckily there was no damage to either the body or the original grips.  The moral of this story is, is if your dealer offers to install the grips for you let them do it.  I was very luck here as any damage would have been mine.

The only mark I left in this process was scrapping the edge of the metal grip while removing a stubborn screw carcass using a flat nose pliers.

Getting past the installation process; the new wooden grips look and feel great.


Don

Edit:
I got the following information as I was writing this and instead of doing a revision I'm adding the information here (and I'm paraphrasing) :


Cambo sees this as a "dealer only operation". Cambo has informed their dealers that they (Cambo) will assist the dealer should they encounter a problem, however they will not assist the consumer who takes it on themselves to do the replacement. I feel this makes sense. Bottom line here folks is if you want to replace the grips let the dealer do it; saves a heck of a lot of aggravation in the long run. My thought process on this, is that I believe Cambo never thought of offering additional grips to the WRS1000 thus they weren't concerned about the screws; however since offering the new WRS 1050 they felt the need (and rightfully so) of offering the wooden grips for the WRS1000.