opso1 From United Kingdom, joined Jun 2005, 527 posts, RR: 1 Posted (3 months 4 weeks 1 day 17 hours ago) and read 2196 times:
Hello All,
I'm looking for some advice, if any of you would be kind enough to share your recomendations and experiences. I've got a Canon 1D Mk IV and a Canon 400mm F2.8 lens and I've got a Manfrotto 393 gimbal head to attach it all to. At the moment, my current Manfrotto 190CXPRO4 tripod is just coping, but is not as safe and sturdy as I'd like with all that weight and hard-earned spent money resting on it. Which tripod would you recommend?
McG1967 From UK - Scotland, joined Apr 2006, 466 posts, RR: 2 Reply 2, posted (3 months 4 weeks 1 day 12 hours ago) and read 2151 times:
Another vote for Gitzo here, although I have an Alu tripod. I found that the Manfrotto 055DXB I was using previously to support 1DIV & 300 F2.8 was not up to the job. At some stage I will replace my Calumet 12kgs rated ball head with a Gitzo one.
geezer From United States of America, joined Aug 2010, 713 posts, RR: 1 Reply 3, posted (3 months 2 weeks 6 days 12 hours ago) and read 1903 times:
Looks like you're already getting good advice. There are many good tripods "out there", and I haven't tried very many of them, but I doubt if you'll find one that will beat a Gitzo. I first became "acquainted" with Gitzo's when I went to Hawaii to visit my son; he had a new Gitzo CF ( 3 section legs, heavy duty, forget the model # ), and uses an Arca Swiss B-1 ball head; the AS head is the BIG star here. ( BTW, the B-1 will support 45 lbs ! Not many others will )
A year later, I decided to seriously up-grade my "kit", but my "pockets" are no where near as deep as my son's; so I had to "improvise"...................I spent a couple of months on eBay, watching every AS B-1 head that sold; ( frightening experience that ! ) many were selling for the price of new ones ( which at the time, were almost always on back-order );
I finally lucked out, got my Arca Swiss B-1 from the nicest fellow I have ever met on-line; ( he was in the U.K. ) The ball head was ( and after 6 or 7 more years, still is ) like new ! ( I keep a padded draw-string bag on the head at all times, and it and my Gitzo also "live" in a well padded case / bag I found new on eBay for a "song".
The Gitzo was slightly easier to find, and it too was "like new", even though it's aluminum, and a 20 yr old model; the thing is like a rock !
Here's the main thing about tripods to look for; they have all manner of locking "schemes" for the leg sections; they pretty much all work, but IMHO, the simple twist locks on the Gitzo is the best I have seen on ANY tripod; having said that........mine has the "old fashioned" large "ears" on each twist lock; all kinds of leverage, but when the thing is folded up, they all kinda tend to "get together"......( just an "aesthetic" thing, really ) My son's CF Gitzo has the newer, round twist locks, much smoother, less inclined to get camera straps caught on, ( but then again, I rarely use a shoulder strap, as I much prefer a wrist strap )
The CF Gitzo / Arca B1 is an unbeatable combo, all except for very long glass, where a gimble type head is superior.
( or if you happen to want to shoot video, then a ball head becomes quite useless )
One thing I never hear mentioned on this forum, is QR plates; for my money, having 2 or 3K in a camera and lens, then having to screw it on and off of a 1/4" threaded stud every time you use the thing is a giant pain in the butt; once you start using QR plates on all your lenses and bodies, you will never again do without them ! Expensive ? Yeah, but then so is the "equipment" you have sitting on that tripod ! And it just saves SO much time and "fumbling" ! ( Photography has never been a "cheap" hobby, and it's certainly not getting any cheaper. I saved a TON on my Gitzo and head, so I can stick some of it into good attachment hardware. ( which is a whole subject in it's self )
The very best thing I have ever read about the whole tripod / head question is on-line in Thom Hogans web site; just Google "By Thom" and it will come right up; then check out what he says about the subject. ( I love it when a top pro is suggesting exactly what I've already done ! )
Make no mistake though, buying used stuff on eBay is also "an art", and takes a hell of a lot of "know how" and experience; and it isn't just "luck".........you pretty much make your own luck, ( good or bad )
opso1 From United Kingdom, joined Jun 2005, 527 posts, RR: 1 Reply 4, posted (3 months 1 week 6 days 20 hours ago) and read 1678 times:
Thanks for all of your recommendations. I have bought a Manfrotto 475B, which suits my needs as far as I can see. I have a friend with one of these with the same set-up and it looks great to me. It is over 4kg in weight, so I won't be hiking with it!
CaptainKramer From United Kingdom, joined Feb 2012, 101 posts, RR: 0 Reply 6, posted (3 months 6 days 7 hours ago) and read 1483 times:
Hi Opso1
A heavy tripod is less likely to get buffeted by the wind, the down side is you have to lug it around. The plus side you get mostly blur free shots and can add time lapse shots at night to your photographic repotoire.
I just bought what seems like a pretty sturdy tripod from the photographic chain, Calumet here in London for £55.00 they also manufactured it, but I don't know if it was built under license or not. I use a Canon 60D and the heaviest lens a Canon F4, 70-200mm. I will let you know how it performs as soon as I get the time to test drive it out at Heathrow Airport, hopefully on a windy day.
Having said that my one rule of thumb with tripods is this, and it is based on personal experience on two seperate occassions.
"Never, ever leave your camera unattended while it is sitting on a tripod, even for a moment, because that's all it takes for it to fall over, given the right circumstances!"
Circumstance 1. : Working as a television soundman next to a busy highway, I watched the cameraman step away from his camera to adjust a light. A big semi truck raced by, blew the camera over, drove the lens right up into the prism block. We were minutes away from a live cross.
But still I had not learned my lesson yet.
Circumstance 2 : I was shooting interiors in a house, I locked the tilt lock on the tripod to fetch a new battery to replace the one that had just died. In that moment I heard a sliding sound, turned around just in time to see a $30,000 EFP camera tip on it's side. I had failed to tighten a slider that stops the legs from spreading. Normally not a problem, but on a tiled floor, big problem. The camera dropped down on one leg, its momentum made it slide over the edge of a two step split level which I had set the camera up next to.
Lesson learned. If I step away from the camera even for a second I take the camera off the tripod and as geezer stated before, using a QR plate makes it very easy to do so, plus it keeps the bottom of the camera scratch free.
geezer From United States of America, joined Aug 2010, 713 posts, RR: 1 Reply 7, posted (3 months 2 days 3 hours ago) and read 1353 times:
Quoting CaptainKramer (Reply 6): turned around just in time to see a $30,000 EFP camera tip on it's side. I had failed to tighten a slider that stops the legs from spreading. Normally not a problem, but on a tiled floor...........
OHhhhhhhhhh! I sure hope you didn't have to pay for the damage ! And yes, setting up on tile or terazzo does make a big difference.
One of the many things I like about my big Gitzo has to do with the legs not spreading; each leg top section has a piece at the top end that can slide, but it requires a bit of a "push"...........the center section that the legs attach to have a set of three or 4 notches; if you want to set the tripod up with the camera at normal level, you don't move anything, just open each leg out; if you need a lower "view point", you slide these pieces out till the leg passes the first notch, then slide it back up, and the camera will be maybe 3 ft high with legs fully extended; in the bottom most position, the camera is only maybe 10 inches from the ground; you need a very sturdy set of legs to do this.
I constantly hear people complaining about "lugging a heavy tripod around"; I look at it this way..........I'm as lazy as anyone else I know; probably lazier than most; but when I take photos, I like them SHARP; that's where the tripod comes in. If you ever do any macro work, and you have say, a 100 mm macro lens mounted on a bellows unit, and you're working at say, 2X life size, you'll wish your camera was anchored to bed-rock !
Obviously, you can't always use a tripod; covering football games and many other sports events comes to mind; but at the end of the day, any time I can use a tripod, I use a tripod, and the heavier it is, the steadier it is.
Very good advice about staying with the camera Captain Kramer ! ( I once saw a fellow who had a Nikon F 5 with a 600mm Nikkor lens attached, on a "not so solid" ball head, and the whole works hit the rocks ) it's a very expensive way to learn !
CaptainKramer From United Kingdom, joined Feb 2012, 101 posts, RR: 0 Reply 8, posted (3 months 1 day 17 hours ago) and read 1330 times:
Hi Geezer,
Luckily, no I didn't have to pay! The Camera tipped on it's side, when it hit the floor. I picked the camera up, (it was when we were still using the Sony 330, BVU split sytem) to find the view finder was black, surprise, surprise!!! I took it back to maintenance, they opened it up, found all the circuit boards had popped out from the impact, shoved them back in, hay presto good as new! My reputation not so much.
opso1
Just an update on the £55.00 Calmet tripod I just bought. I went out and tested it at Heathrow shooting 27R and 27L on Sunday with a strong cross wind. Given that I have a quite lite shooting rig Canon 60D and the Canon 200mm prime lens and the Canon F4 70-200mm lens it did the job considering the conditions. It took a while to develop a way of using the tripod and get the same type of shots I was used to if only doing hand held, but after spending a day using the tripod/camera combination I don't think I will ever do hand held again.
I'm with you, Geezer, I too like getting pin sharp images and the tripod made my hit to miss ratio drop dramatically. I like to capture the more dramatic three quarter head on shots of aircraft and found the blur on the nose of the aircraft when shooting hand held often made the shot unusable. Not any more.
The only downside of the tripod was that the central shaft which telescoped up and down to adjust height upto eye level was split, a design feature to allow panning, but made it hard to stop the tripod from panning or moving off my intended framing when doing time lapse shots of planes at night. I think a metal clip or clamp should do the trick or simply shoot low, without using the telescope feature, this had occurred to me after I had left the airport of course.
geezer From United States of America, joined Aug 2010, 713 posts, RR: 1 Reply 9, posted (3 months 1 day 11 hours ago) and read 1305 times:
Quoting CaptainKramer (Reply 8): I took it back to maintenance, they opened it up, found all the circuit boards had popped out from the impact, shoved them back in, hay presto good as new! My reputation not so much.
Lol! I'm sure glad that expensive camera "survived" the fall ! Don't worry, your reputation will regain it's former status a lot quicker than it would have if they had to spend "big bucks" repairing that camera !
I tend to be exceedingly careful when I'm using my equipment; it's also why I always use Arca-style quick release plates on my bodies, and all my lenses; trying to insert a screw into a camera body not only takes a lot of "fumbling", but also a lot of time, and dramatically increases the potential of dropping the camera, not to mention, the more times you screw something into the threaded hole on the camera body, tighten it up properly, the more chance there is of ruining the threads in the hole.
The next big step after getting a decent tripod, is getting a good head to use with it; for most things, i very much prefer a ball head over a "pan-tilt" head; I was very lucky here........I didn't have to "experiment" with different heads; my oldest son and his wife are both engineers, with no children, so he spends a fortune on camera gear. He bought an Arca Swiss B-1 ball head probably 10 yrs ago, and I had experience working with the thing, so I already knew exactly what I wanted when I was about to buy one. The AS B-1 goes for right at $500 at B&H in NYC, but I found mine on eBay; probably the nicest fellow in all of the U.K. had it for sale, and I won the bid with 180 LBS Sterling ! (As you can see, I'm not sure how to make a "pound sign" on my Mac ! )
There are a number of great ball heads "out there", but the Arca has a very big set of "advantages".......first, it will support an incredible 45 lbs ! second........the "ball" is aspheric, (or very slightly out of round) When you attach the camera to it, and it's still level, it "moves" very easily; as you tilt the camera to either side from vertical, it becomes progressively tighter as it gets to the bottom of it's travel; so if you have a body with a heavy lens attached, and take your hands off of the camera, it prevents the camera/lens to suddenly "flop" over and possibly bang into something.
It's also one of the main reasons why so many nature / wildlife pros use the Arca B-1. It just "works" ! (IMHO, the Swiss are the very best at designing and building precision equipment, and not just watches. )
I have invested in a very nice little padded draw-string bag from Kineses Gear, and the minute I remove the camera from the ball head, on goes the padded bag. In 5 or 6 yrs of use, it still appears to be brand new ! When I bought my Gitzo tripod on eBay, I looked and looked for a good bag; I really didn't want one that said "Gitzo" in huge big letters, (plus they cost an arm and a leg ); I finally found the perfect tripod bag, brand new, from a fellow who imports them from China, ( for all of about $ 24 USD ! ) So with the bag on the ball head, and the tripod in the bag, I can bang around in the woods, (or the desert) all day long, but when I see something I want to shoot, I can have the camera out, mounted, and be taking a shot in nothing flat.
One more thing I'll mention while we're discussing tripods and such.............when I bought my D-300s about 9 months ago, i was looking for a way to carry it when I fly, while keeping it "unobtrusive" (and also safe) Visit Amazon and do a search for: Clik Elite Bodylink Telephoto Pack; This thing is just marvelous, as it solves several problems with one piece of gear; you'll see a very good photo of it; there is an aluminum tubular "frame" around the pack (which is held in place by a velcro "sling" at the bottom, and can be removed in seconds if need be) It rides very comfortably on your chest, with a D 300s / 80-200mm F2.8 lens attached; The camera and lens are as safe as can be; when you need the camera, and don't have a tripod available...........the tubular frame has a mounting plate at the top for a ball head; (my AS B-1 works like a charm) You unzip the pack, the front falls forward maybe 5 or 6 inches, the ball head screws onto the threaded stud, and the frame has a cam-lock lever on both sides, allowing movement up or down, you back up against a wall or tree, whatever, and the camera is almost as solid as if it were on a tripod ! Probably the cleverest piece of camera gear I've run across in the last decade! ( I can't wait to try it at an air show this summer. ) But I also do a lot of "tramping around" in the woods where I live. We have an incredible diversity of wild life, much of which can seen right out of our windows ! ( I just missed out on getting a shot of a bald eagle this morning, because all my equipment was "in the bag" ! Check out the Clik Elite Pack; ( I got mine from Amazon for $134 USD, with free shipping ! )
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