There's no case I can think of where ANY L-plate would be used with ANY gimbal head.

Gimbals are designed to be used with large lenses that have their own tripod mounting collars.

L-plates are designed to be used on camera bodies fitted with shorter lenses, to allow the camera to be directly mounted to the quick release platform of the tripod head and oriented either horiz. or vert.

The two items are not intended to be used together.

L-plates can be used with many different types of heads (other than gimbals), but might be most often used with ballheads, because on those... without an L-plate... vertical orientation means "flopping" the camera and lens off to the side, which makes it somewhat unbalanced.

I forget which, but either Wimberley or Kirk Photo has an accessory to allow a camera to be mounted to a gimbal while not using a big lens with a tripod collar, via a standard Arca-style camera plate. I suppose using that would allow a camera with an L-plate to be mounted too. But it seems to be it would be a lot simpler, when wanting to use the camera with an L-plate, to remove the gimbal from the tripod and replace it with a ballhead. Depending upon the tripod setup, that might require tools to do.

These are some of the reasons I instead use a Wimberley Sidekick gimbal adapter of a full-size gimbal head. The Sidekick fits into the QR platform of a ballhead, which remains on the tripod. So I don't need to carry and swap out heads. I just install or remove the gimbal adapter, depending upon whether or not I'm using a large lens with a tripod mounting collar.

I'm not a fan of L-brackets in general... they add a lot of bulk to the camera and are expensive. So I was pleased to discover another use for the Sidekick. Because it's a "side mount" design (unlike many other gimbals that are "bottom mount"), the Sidekick also comes in handy to set up a camera and short lens combo in vertical orientation. I've often used it that way.

Side mount gimbals, like the Sidekick, only have one axis of movement (tilt) and aren't rated for quite as much weight as full size, bottom mount gimbals can handle. (The ballhead it's used with provides the panning axis.... a heavy duty ballhead is recommended for use with gimbal adapters. I use a Kirk BH-1 rated for around 50 lb.)

The Sidekick is rated to handle up to about an 8 lb. lens with a typical DSLR, which weigh up to around 2 lb. I've used it extensively without any problem with 500mm f/4, and sometimes loaded up with teleconverter, flash bracket, flash and more. But I've seen people using them without any problem with up to 400mm f/2.8 and 600mm f/4 lenses.

Two other adapters I am aware of are the Induro GHBA (similar to Sidekick) and the Jobu BWG "Mini" (lower priced, smaller and rated for about half the weight of the Sidekick or Induro).

All the above gimbals and ballheads... every L-bracket I'm aware of... as well as many other tripod heads and other accessories utilize and are compatible with the Arca-Swiss Quick Release system. Many different manufacturers make products and accessories based upon that system. There are even now some cameras (Fujifilm) and lenses (Tamron) that have incorporated dovetails into some of their designs.

Personally I don't have the Nest gimbal (yet!). It seems top quality and an excellent value. I'm not knocking it, by any means. In fact I've often recommended it and I do have a similar full size gimbal on another tripod. But regardless of brand, this "full size" type of gimbal head sort of makes a tripod "long lens only", unless the gimbal is removed and replaced with another type of head. As a result, I mostly only take and use the tripod fitted with the full-size gimbal when I'm using two large lenses at the same time (usually sports shooting, sometimes wildlife). When I don't know if I'll be using long lenses or not, or when I don't need two tripods and just want to carry one with full versatility, I instead use the other tripod fitted with the ballhead and Sidekick gimbal adapter described above.

Hello, I am going to Iceland 2/28/20 on a photography workshop. My longest lens is the Canon 70-200 mm L f/4.

My question is this, "do I need to have a Canon 100-400 mm lens for daylight photos, or can I get by with the 70-200 and an extender? If the answer is an extender, which one should I purchase - 1.4x or 2.0x. If you say the 100-400 would be better for outdoor shots (not in town shots but waterfalls etc.) then I will rent it. My concern is that the 100-400 lens is 1.5 pounds heavier than the 70-200 and an extender. I am a senior citizen and weight is a consideration. Thank you in advance for your anticipated sharing of your knowledge!

PS also bringing a Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 (northern lights), Canon 24-105 (walk-around in town), Canon's nifty 50, Canon 16-35 mm f/4 (too slow for the northern lights) really like the effects of the wide angle. The photographers leading the tour recommended f/2.8 or faster for the northern lights. All that is left is the zoom...

Hi, new but been with you forever, & am sure this has been answered before... I'll be teaching an IPhone Camera Course soon, so I shd know this! Need your help - I'm from the film days, made the trans to digital, trying to come to terms with phone photo. Need to know how to explain/understand the difference of quality. I am a purist by heart but sometimes you have to go with technology, I'm trying,. Some say they are very close & that it's not the "tool" it's the user. I have taken several courses on iPhone Photography & am amazed at the controls that are available. I'll stop now and ask for any advice or views. thx in advance

Difference of what quality? What does you purist by heart vs technology statement even mean?!
The basic difference between a phone camera and a dedicated camera is the phone. Take away the phone and you have a point and shoot with a tiny little lens. You are limited to what you can do with this point and shoot by that tiny little lens. Regardless of how many available controls, it is digital photography and there are plenty of electronic tools available to manipulate the digital image, your plethora of controls, unless you do something about the little tiny lens, you will be limited by it. You say you have taken several courses on iPhone photography and will be conducting a course on iPhone photography. Tell your students what you as a student, learned. What else is there.

Or make a deliberate choice to remain ignorant by not inquiring. However, most of the negative comments about raw may be from those very same willfully ignorant people, who advocate camera generated jpegs over anything else simply because it is within their comfort level. Recording and editing raw files present a cognitive dissonance that, even if the edited raw file has clearly better qualities to it (notwithstanding composition and other qualitative elements that have nothing to do with the method used to arrive at the finished result), they may very well choose to respond with something along the lines of, "I've done it this way forever, and the raw version isn't worth the effort. My way is more than good enough for me!" - all the while remaining completely ignorant of just how easy and fast it is to produce a superior image when you start with a raw file. They also are quick to dismiss an image as unsalvageable, worthy of the trash bin - simply because they cheated themselves out of the opportunity to leverage the dynamic range capabilities of their cameras by choosing to shoot only jpeg. A case of sour grapes it seems. There are a complete other group of photographers - the raw+jpeg crowd - that want to shoot raw, but somehow can't let go of the jpeg "crutch" and record two files with identical settings, once again failing to record the raw file with a more optimal exposure settings.

This is what the OP poses for comparison, and for this image there will be subtle differences between the two, if you simply convert the raw file, without adjustment, to jpeg.

In contrast, the images below were shot as a bracketed set of jpegs, SOOC, and the last one is the result of an exposure optimized for raw capture, and processed to jpeg. There isn't a single SOOC jpeg that could capture the shadow detail AND the highlights in the clouds in a single shot like the raw capture did. I metered for the brightest area in the cloud, added two stops, did a little post processing (about 2 mins) to dodge the shadows and burn in the sky and clouds (no different than had I been using an enlarger and a wet process about 50 yrs ago), to produce the final result.

I think this is a better illustration of why there can be a clear advantage to using a raw workflow. Granted, with the OP's images there is "normal" contrast with no extremes so the benefit to shooting raw in such cases is slight, but adopting a raw workflow for ALL images produces better consistency and fewer deletes, at least as far as exposure is concerned. Shooting raw + jpeg is like leaving money on the table in a business negotiation.

Yikes, and how do I get by with using one focus point and spot metering for my Flower Close-Ups? Unless this is completely new technology at 61MP the pixels will be so small and close together you'll get diffraction at f/8! Now you can easily print 16 x 24 foot murals and still pixel peek. Useful tool.

Yesterday I got caught in a rain storm without any rain gear, The D810 and 24~120mm lens got really soaked. The camera quit working while the lens works correctly. My car sets in full sun on the driveway, so I set the camera on the passengers seat without the front cap and the battery door open. I just went out to check. The stirring wheel was hot to touch and camera was also. Brought the camera inside, installed the battery and the camera works as advertised. This has happened to me twice and each time I opened the camera and left it to dry out and this has worked twice now.