Masterpiece of inept marketing!

[rpcrowe]

I have been using the Manfrotto 393 Gimbal for about 15-years...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzy6Jddl90E&t=26s

IMO it is one of the best mounts for action photography





I learned about this rig from Romy Ocon, an excellent BIF photographer from the Philippines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEfeV8AjG_g&t=124s

But, why isn't this rig more popular. IMO, much of the lack of popularity is because of the inept marketing of Manfrotto...

1. Manfrotto has marketed this unit und several designations over the years.

2. It seems unreal but. Manfrotto persists in advertising this rig with the camera mounted upside down, while it seems that everyone else uses this rig with the camera mounter on top of the swinging mounting bar.

3. Manfrotto also persists in stating that you cannot use a flash on conjunction with this mount! I contacted Manfrotto in 2007 and asked how to mount a flash using their mount. Manfrotto replied that it was not possible to use a flash with the rig! However, a simple aftermarket adaptation using a "C" shaped bar of flat aluminum makes adding a flash easy with this fig. Manfrotto could easily add this as an accessory.

[Manfred M]

Richard - Manfrotto is part of Vitec, a multi-national holding company primarily in the motion picture and still photography business whose head office is in the UK. They own many well known brands like Manfrotto, Gitzo, Sachtler, Lowepro, etc.

The market for gimbals is fairly small, with most of it being either bird photographers or to a lesser extent event (mainly sport) photography. Manfrotto tends to be a company that deals with the mid-range sector (with Gitzo aimed at the higher end market). As long as they sell enough to justify keeping the units in production, why would they invest in a relatively now sales volume product. Wimberly, RRS, Novoflex (at the higher end) and a lot others at the lower to middle price range (Benro, SunwayFoto, LeoFoto, to name just a few) there really does not seem to be a lot of reason for them to spend any time or effort on this product.

Product design, tooling and manufacturing all are fairly expensive. It costs very little to continue to produce the current lineup that has been around for many years. Improvements (to get past the corporate finance folks) needs to demonstrate that the required investment (ROI - Return on Investment) will be worthwhile. I suspect that the limited R&D resources are best spent elsewhere....

[tclune]

I have the 393 and virtually never use it. It was my first gimbal, but it's just not a very good one for my purposes. The things I dislike about it are:
1. It is very bulky. That's fine if you aren't moving about, but it's a real pain in the field.
2. The pan cannot be locked. That's a real problem, again, when trying to move around in the field. You pretty much have to unmount the camera rig to be able to switch locations -- unlike virtually every other gimbal ever made.
3. It isn't Arca compatible. This is a general complaint I have with Manfrotto (I also bought the 502 before I could buy a vowel.)
4. That stupid 'U' design impedes access to the camera and equipment for no apparent reason.

FWIW

[pendennis]

I started out with the Manfrotto 393, and I used it until I found an Induro GHB2. While the Manfrotto doesn't fit the de facto standard of the modern gimbal, it does fit the definition of what a gimbal is supposed to do, permit easy, constant elevation and azimuth changes. And I don't believe Manfrotto ever intended the 393 to lock down completely. After all, a gimbal is designed for constant movement.

While serving in the U.S. Navy, our bridge compass was gimbal-mounted, and I used a set of high power binoculars on a gimbal mount when on bridge watch. I tend to view the gimbal mount in those terms.

No, the 393 doesn't use the de facto Arca-Swiss standard. However, it took only a few dollars and a few minutes to convert the Manfrotto plate to Arca Swiss, using a Hejnar adapter. And to be fair, the industry was in flux at the time of the 393 design and production. I've converted a number of Manfrotto heads using Hejnar's adapters. One which is especially handy, is the Hejnar hex plate-to-Arca-Swiss adapter. They're no longer listed by Hejnar, but my Bogen 3047, 3038, and 3039 heads all have renewed life with the Hejnar device. There are also any number of Arca-Swiss plates which screw tightly to existing hex plate heads. Does it seem Rube Goldberg-ish? Maybe, but it works fine.

And I do agree that the traditional gimbal design limits certain accesses to the camera and/or lens.

[rpcrowe]

Manfred - you totally missed my point... Manfrotto has been marketing this unit for over fifteen years. It needs no additional product design, tooling and manufacturing which are all are fairly expensive. It simply needed some decent marketing.

IMO - if you produce a good product with faulty marketing, you are wasting the money that you originally spent on the product design, tooling and manufacturing.

[Manfred M]

Manfred - you totally missed my point... Manfrotto has been marketing this unit for over fifteen years. It needs no additional product design, tooling and manufacturing which are all are fairly expensive. It simply needed some decent marketing.

IMO - if you produce a good product with faulty marketing, you are wasting the money that you originally spent on the product design, tooling and manufacturing.

Richard - you are definitely underestimating the cost of an advertising campaign (which is essentially what you are thinking about). While online advertising may not cost much to distribute as print campaigns, but the up front cost; photography, copy, etc. are not cheap either. Making a professional video is not cheap either, Online targeting is a bit of a challenge as targeting at the granularity for people looking at the product is not easy either.