Best Tripod and head for stability

Theron, the problem with tripods with center columns is that the further you extend the center column the more unstable the tripod becomes. The center of weight changes.

I do not know if you have purchased a ballhead with your new tripod. The Really Right Stuff is very good; however be aware of the sticker shock when you see their prices.

Hope this was of some help.

Bruce

Hi, Class A -

For starters, the MeFoto tripods are manufactured by Benro. I bought their MeFoto A1350Q1P (the P is for purple because I'm a Washington Huskies fan and I can find brightly colored "stuff" in the midst of a sea of other stuff; it's also called the Road Trip, because it's heavier and holds more than the next lighter MeFoto tripod) after looking at a lot of other tripods like Manfrotto and Gitzo. The price was in my wheelhouse ($189US with no tax in honor of Father's Day weekend and the manufacturers selling through my local camera store essentially paid the 9% sales tax). All the legs will move to the position you prefer (continuously) and you can get it flat (low to the ground). The legs, when fully extended, come together so that I tried just wrapping a heavy rubberband around the bottom of the legs to have a monopod and that works pretty well. I got this particular model because it will handle a load of 17.6 pounds (8KG) which is necessary for large lenses and stabilizing weight, including my two water bottles that I'm already in the habit of hanging off the bottom of the center post.

My main thing was that, at the time I bought my first serious camera (a Mamiya fixed lens SLR), I also bought a tripod. It was $24.95 in 1963. Its most important feature was that the leg extensions worked by a twist motion to lock and unlock them. I had and used that tripod until 2001 when a student slammed a car door on it and bent the legs so they wouldn't open. Since then I've had two tripods that where the legs extended using a lever at each position on each leg. The lever in the first case lasted for 8 years until one of the levers broke off and couldn't be replaced. The same thing happened to the second of those tripods and I swore off lever-operated tripod leg extensions! So, I went looking for a ball head with twist extensions as well as light weight (the one I got is 1.63KG which is just fine).

I mentioned my water bottles earlier. I travel with 4-5 1/2 liter water bottles and invariably have two full ones attached to my walker when I'm out taking pictures. So, I just hang them off the bottom of the tripod. Even with my biggest lens (300mm on a Sony a700) in a mild Santa Ana wind, things were stable, though we didn't get the Santa Ana gusts the way I get nearer to home. (A Santa Ana is like a mistral or a chinook, very warm and very dry, if you're not familiar with SoCal weather.)

Around here, MeFoto tripods seem to be very hot. All the dealers at The Big Photo Show back in May had one in their booth and I couldn't get close to the booths with my walker, so I just waited and went to the dealer I normally buy photo stuff from. The guy I talked to said they couldn't get any more product until July, so I went around to the other dealer that I use to fill in holes in my gear. They had them in stock at the main store, so knowing about their tax-free sales before Mom's Day and Dad's Day, said I would come around on Friday to buy one and would they put my name on it. They did and I carried it home a week and two days ago.

If you have any other questions, I'd be happy to answer based on the work I've done so far. But, I won't be home until around 5-6pm Pacific Time on account of I have a new tripod and I'm going out to use it! :p

virginia

As with anything photographic (or anything else) you do get what you pay for. If you are planning to do 30 minute exposures on the top of a mountain that takes you about 4 or 5 hours to hike to, yes get the high end Gitzo with the RRS (or Novoflex, Kirk or Markins ball head - depending on the review you read, these companies meet or beat the RRS gear for quality). Make sure it does not have a centre post (we don't want any wobbly centre column) and take some empty sandbags along to fill on site to stabilize the legs.

If you are a mere mortal and need something to stabilize a camera for a few seconds at most, you can certainly go for the more modestly prices stuff from Benro or Induro or some of the other lesser brands. Gitzo, by the way is part of the Vitec group that also includes Manfrotto, Sachtler, Vinten and O'Conner; all recognized tripod and heads for still and cine work.

I have a couple of Benro carbon fiber tripods. I have used a Gitzo, and have no issue at all suggesting it is better than my fairly inexpensive tripods, but then I paid an awful lot less money for them and they are more than adequate for the shooting that I do, and I do use a tripod frequently.

Thanks, Virgina, for your experience report.

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Originally Posted by drjuice

All the legs will move to the position you prefer (continuously) and you can get it flat (low to the ground).

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Is it not a problem that the legs don't lock (other than in two positions)?
I guess it won't be the most stable setup if the legs can potentially slide.

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Originally Posted by drjuice

I travel with 4-5 1/2 liter water bottles and invariably have two full ones attached to my walker when I'm out taking pictures. So, I just hang them off the bottom of the tripod.

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Does this improve the stability significantly?

Does the tripod thread still vibrate when one pings a leg?

Did you use the reverse mounting of the centre column? I'm wondering how practical having the camera upside down is in practice (e.g., for macro work).

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Originally Posted by GrumpyDiver

As with anything photographic (or anything else) you do get what you pay for.

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Yes, but sometimes you pay more than you should and sometimes it is better to not pay anything as opposed to getting something pretty useless. :)

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Originally Posted by GrumpyDiver

If you are a mere mortal and need something to stabilize a camera for a few seconds at most, you can certainly go for the more modestly prices stuff from Benro or Induro or some of the other lesser brands.

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I was wondering whether there were any differences w.r.t. quality in that "affordable" category.

I would, for instance, be happy with a higher weight as long as the stability is there.

Did you know that even the impulse of the shutter closing causes blur? I'm not talking about mirror induced blur (which can be avoided with MUP), but the shutter sending vibrations through the camera. Falk Lumo once did an investigation into the K-7 shutter-induced blur and found out that really good tripods help to dampen even such tiny vibrations.

Pretty much any construction will hold the camera more stable than may hands can, but if I'm spending money on a new tripod (I have something rather old already), I'd like it to be as stable as possible (for reasonable money). Hence my enquiry (which should have elaborated more on the stability / dampening issue).

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Originally Posted by Class A

Yes, but sometimes you pay more than you should and sometimes it is better to not pay anything as opposed to getting something pretty useless. :)


I was wondering whether there were any differences w.r.t. quality in that "affordable" category.

I would, for instance, be happy with a higher weight as long as the stability is there.

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I totally agree, and finding that unit with the “sweet spot” where the tradeoffs work for you is always the trick. If weight is not an issue, but price is, go for an aluminum unit with the largest diameter legs (maximum rigidity) you can find. Carbon fibre, due to its low weight and high rigidity sells for a premium, so you can save yourself a bundle by going to a more traditional material like aluminum.

Again; it really does depend on your requirements, and what works for me may not work for you. I have two Benro carbon fiber tripods and were bought for travel, so I was more than willing to pay more for a unit that fits into my suitcase, without blowing my luggage allowance out the window. If I want rigid, I’ll mount my DSLR on my Libec video tripod. It would let me take an hour long exposure and be totally motionless throughout; it is a lot more solid and rigid than any photo tripod I have ever used; but it is not particularly portable and is certainly not light weight. On the other hand, I would not consider taking it more than a few hundred meters from my car, it weighs too darn much.

If I were primarily shooting in a studio, I would likely use a different tripod and different head that what I have.

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Originally Posted by Class A

Did you know that even the impulse of the shutter closing causes blur? I'm not talking about mirror induced blur (which can be avoided with MUP), but the shutter sending vibrations through the camera. Falk Lumo once did an investigation into the K-7 shutter-induced blur and found out that really good tripods help to dampen even such tiny vibrations.

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Of course, any level of mechanical vibration can cause some motion, whether it is the shutter decelerating or the mirror decelerating, and it will certainly take some time for the vibrations to damp out. I had a very quick read of the link you posted, and I am not sure if what he was seeing was the impact of the shutter or the impact of how the floating sensor was trying to neutralize the camera shake from the shutter coming to a stop.

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Originally Posted by Class A

Pretty much any construction will hold the camera more stable than may hands can, but if I'm spending money on a new tripod (I have something rather old already), I'd like it to be as stable as possible (for reasonable money). Hence my enquiry (which should have elaborated more on the stability / dampening issue).

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Really this is going to depend on your budgets and needs. Have a look at:
http://www.dpreview.com/articles/281...-for-under-450
as a start.

My perspective: I truly hate lugging tripods about. But I do when I am taking "once in a lifetime" shots that I will likely not have the chance to take again. As I hate tripod lugging I have invested in high quality carbon fibre and a good head. This gives, compactness, rigidity and resistance to the elements (freezing in the arctic circle. salt spray in coastal conditions). Comes at a price.

All tripods are affected by environmental conditions. If you are set up on ice and half a dozen mountaineers are tramping about nearby, ground vibration will get through. Wind is another big factor with long exposures (eg at night)

Any tripod is better than none, but if you are serious about stability then heavy and rigid is best. This is the trade off with portability. Many travel tripods i have seen in action are flimsy (because of thin and light legs) and will work but not work well in adverse conditions.

Conclusion: no such thing as a perfect tripod unless you know you are going to be setting up only a few metres from transport and you have no airline luggage limitation. Don't sweat it too much. try to buy a good head though. Heads that are loose or hard to adjust quickly result in the tripod not being used.

Hey, Davey -

When I was a little kid, we used to get the lead used by the Fed to to seal bags of coins before they distributed the coins to actual banks. We'd make fishing sinkers out of the lead after we melted it. The only issue was that they used actual hemp twine as a seal for the bags before they put a little blob of lead on the drawstring to keep it closed. So, we had to fish little pieces of the twine out of the melted lead before we could pour the lead into the sinker molds. :( The beauty of this was that the (one and only local) bank would give us kids the lead for free (I suspect on the theory that if we were fishing we wouldn't be getting into some kind of trouble), but charged the grownups a little bit for the lead. ;)

If the lead were still available someplace, that'd be better than a coupla water bottles on the bottom of my tripod! ;)

virginia

Perhaps I can safely state that there is no "best tripod and head for stability" because the question is over four years old, and there still is no definitive answer.

And the question is still being asked on most photo forums.

Glenn

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Originally Posted by Glenn NK

<SNIP> there still is no definitive answer.
And the question is still being asked on most photo forums.

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I'm a little surprised not to have seen any mention of Linhof tripods in this thread!

I don't have it anymore, but the Linhof tripod I bought about 30 years ago for $AU300 (and that was secondhand[!]) was (1) a monster, (2) weighed a ton, (3) extremely stable and (4) had enough weight-carrying capacity to jack up a car for a tyre change! :eek: It was easily strong enough to hold a Cambo 5 x 7 field camera along with a number of other heavy-(ish) items on the accessory shelf (mentioned below).

It came with a pan-tilt head, and later on, I bought a Linhof ball-and-socket head for it (the ball was something between the size of a golf-ball and that of a tennis-ball, IIRC), along with a carrying case and a special platform which had a large centre hole, and would fit on the tripod's centre shaft, either on top, for use either as a projector stand (in the old days of slide projectors), or it could fit somewhere further down the shaft for use as accessory shelf.

The tripod was not able to be lowered below about 0.5m (about 1½ft), but the centre shaft was reversible, so that the camera could be attached below, which would give a lower viewpoint, although I don't think it would have been able to get quite as low as the Gitzo mentioned earlier in this thread.

Financial circumstances forced me to dispose of it a number of years ago, and now I wish I had never needed to let it go! I have never since seen its equal; it was built like a tank!

Best regards to all
Chris Souter

Slapstick mentioned a tripod of a Chinese brand named "Triopo". A while ago, I purchased a Triopo lever operated Arca Compatible quick realease clamp with which I was very disappointed! The clamp just fell apart.

I don't know if this is any indication of the quality of other Triopo products but, I would not consider this brand...

Many thanks to everyone who replied.

I've seized an opportunity and got myself a used Manfrotto 055XPROB.
It doesn't do the monopod trick as the MeFoto but appears to be very stable and is rather versatile as well.

I think I'll be having fun with this one.

As Collin mentioned Really Right Stuff produces some great equipment as does Gitzo. I use the RRS L Brackets and love them.

Another manufacturer that offers top-line gear is Kirk Enterprises. http://www.kirkphoto.com/

I have used a Kirk MPA-1 monopod head for years but, since I lost the monopod and head on a bus in Croatia, I have replaced the MPA-1 with a more heavy-duty, MPA-2 head (which was not available when I purchased the MPA-1). Bothe the MPA-1 and MPA-2 are exceptionally well made. I would have no worries about the quality of other Kirk products based on the build of the two Kirk tilt-heads with which I have had experience.

Whatever head that you decide upon, I would strongly suggest getting an Arca Compatible Quick Release Clamp. Most top-line units come with A/C clamps....