I use Arca-Swiss style quick releases with my cameras. My main tripod is a Really Right Stuff TQC-14 (Mk1), with their BH-30 ballhead with Arca-Swiss-style lever clamp. This tripod is the single best photography item I’ve ever bought but that’s another subject.
With any recent-model camera, Really Right Stuff (and others) make custom-fit Arca-compatible L-plates. But if you’re using a film camera most likely you’ll need to use a generic rectangular Arca-style plate, which tend to work great.
My Wista SP 4x5 camera, however, has a round tripod mount area:
The solution I found is the Really Right Stuff TH-DVTL-40 plate. Continue reading for more details and caveats (mainly, you will need a tapered 1/4” screw to use this plate with a camera).
I’m not sure if there was a specific tripod head platform design the round Wista design was intended for. It’d probably work fine attached directly to a tripod platform without a quick release system, or with any quick-release system with plates bigger than the circle. One of Manfrotto’s multiple quick-release systems has quite large plates that would work, for example.
But after trying Arca-type plates, there’s no going back. Arca plates come in many lengths and designs but aren’t generally much wider than the part that goes into the clamp, which is not as wide as the Wista circle, so you don’t get very much contact with typical plates. If you really crank it down, metal-on-metal contact with e.g. the Really Right Stuff B22 plate would probably work fine. I don’t happen to have a B22 plate to try it - I use camera-specific RRS L-plates for digital cameras but I use less-expensive generic Arca-type plates with rubber padding from other brands for other cameras (mostly medium format) which don’t get put on a tripod very often (so usually I leave the plates off since they protrude).
The metal circle cut into the rubber padding of the generic plate I had available, but not deep enough to get good metal-on-metal contact. It worked but was not as secure as I wanted and I could get it to loosen by twisting the camera with moderate force when mounted on the tripod. After much searching to no avail, despite Wista cameras being reasonably popular (and Arca quick releases being very popular), I found a solution that happens to be from Really Right Stuff - their TH-DVTL-40 plate, which has a round platform meant to attach to their BH-40 tripod ball head (also compatible with others, including the smaller BH-30 which is what I have - anything up to 2 inches/50mm):
Really Right Stuff TH-DVTL-40 plate - top
Really Right Stuff TH-DVTL-40 plate - bottom
You can faintly see the impression made by the camera’s round platform in the image above. It is the perfect size and makes complete, metal-on-metal contact, and when tightened down I am unable to get it to loosen by twisting the camera. More than sufficiently secure.
There is one problem - as the plate is designed for a tripod head, it comes with a 3/8” screw. Most cameras use a 1/4” screw. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue, but this plate uses a screw with a tapered head that fits flush, so just using a standard 1/4” screw with a flat head like with most camera plates isn’t ideal. I am using an extra tapered screw I happened to have from the Kondor Blue compact quick release system I use for video accessories, but the taper angle is wrong and you can see in the photo the impression ring where it’s contacting the plate in just one spot. (They’ve also updated the design and it no longer uses a tapered screw, FYI.)
Even if the taper is wrong, I think a tapered screw should be stronger when tightened down like this with a gap compared to a flat one. Really Right Stuff sells two tapered screws, spare parts for their L plates, either of which should work - this one for $1.25 or this one for $5. The $1.25 one is used in the Canon 5D IV L-plate which I have, so I tried it and it worked fine, though the taper doesn’t match (it’s similar to the screw I was using). I’m not sure if the $5 screw has the correct taper but it should also work. I have attempted to find a matching screw with the correct taper elsewhere, but without luck.