Camera tripods, heads, all of them are compromised.

"ransley" wrote in message
...
On Apr 3, 4:20 am, RichA wrote:
Doesn't matter if it's a $100 Manfrotto or a $1000 Gitzo, they are all
compromised. It is sad. The article below cites one typical example,
the head "sag" problem. Where despite tightening everything, flexure
occurs. But there are lots of other problems with support units.
Tripods are often chosen that are too light to really do the job. The
tripod design is inherently strong, but there are limits. If you are
using a 300-500mm lens on a crop camera, it is almost impossible, with
any tripod, to avoid vibration. You basically live with the image
being less sharp than it could have been. Modern Photography did
experiments in the 1970's that showed image blur (and they were just
using film and 35mm cameras with resolutions not much better than a 6
megapixel digital) with long lenses was universal when using photo
tripods.
The major issues center around leg flexure, head flexure and the
mounts available that hold long camera lenses. We can't see it, or
even sense it, but these things bend under stress. Legs tend to bend
at the smallest diameter extension which with most tripods is closer
to the ground. This also sets up vibrations, some too high in
frequency to be seen or felt, but enough to blur and image. The fact
the leg-head connection point induces strain into a tripod assembly
(often poorly compensated for in the design) also causes vibration. If
you're curious about your tripod and vibration, you can set-up a
couple of mirrors and a laser and actually see it in action.
Heads bend mostly at the stalk that attaches the head base to the part
that attaches to the camera's base-plate. Head design in many cases
is just plain poor. Thin stalks attaching balls to the base-plate
connection point. crappy-open lattice and L-shaped pieces that make-
up most 3-axis heads. Poor designs that inherently flex. And the sad
part? A properly designed head wouldn't weight more at all.
Another thing that causes flexure and instability is the use of any
plastic in load-bearing or stressed areas. NEVER use a tripod that
uses plastic like this.
Torsional flexure comes from the fact legs are not unified at any
point but the connection to the head. Oddly enough, even a thin,
light Y-shaped chain under tension, about 1/2 way down and unifying
the legs adds stability.
Cheap tripods have parts that have poor fit, and they should be
avoided.
Another design error, too many parts to couple the camera to the
tripod and too many moving head parts. Every one of them adds one
more chance for instability.
Lastly, the worst thing about tripods pertains to long camera
lenses. Their mounting brackets or blocks INVITE instability. I'm
surprised there isn't an even more robust market for aftermaket lens
supports, though there are some. The common rule for supporting a
tube properly is to use two tube rings, spaced no less than 1/3 of the
total length of the tube.
The best tripods I've seen are those used with good astronomical
telescopes. Their legs tend to use few extensions. The tubes are
large diameter and often unified about 1/2 way down their lengths with
locking triangles or other methods. When you "lock out" a triangle
(complete it) it's stability increases 5-10 fold. Surveyor's tripods
are also very good. They have 2-section legs of wide dimension and
are very stable because the devices used on them require it. There
are German camera tripods from Berlebach and Ries that are designed
from surveyor's tripods.http://riestripod.com/tripics.htm#tri1

Pure tragedy? Check out the spindly Novoflex legs on the $1700 head
attached to the D3x at the bottom of this article.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/re...agic-box.shtml

I have a very heavy Bogen, no real flex except in wind and a carbon
fiber that vibrates for near 4 seconds through the carbon fiber
visably when touching anything. Use a zoom feature to focus and
monitor vibrations, a laser is an interesting idea for testing. Good
tripods are heavy ones you dont want to carry around. Now if only
Canon would get off their ass and put in image stabilisation, Sony is
ahead of the game.

I suppose it depends on the % of perfection you want, I use a tripods
because I always get camera shake so even with the cheapest tripod I get a
vast improvement in pictures. The truth is to get 100% stability it would an
extremely heavy and costly device I fear.

"Bruce" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 3 Apr 2010 15:39:51 +0100, "SS"
wrote:

I suppose it depends on the % of perfection you want, I use a tripods
because I always get camera shake so even with the cheapest tripod I get a
vast improvement in pictures. The truth is to get 100% stability it would
an
extremely heavy and costly device I fear.


Have you tried a monopod?

A monopod gives you a very useful increase in stability at a much
lower penalty than a tripod in terms of bulk and weight.


Good shout, thats worth a try.

In rec.photo.digital Bruce wrote:
On Sat, 3 Apr 2010 15:39:51 +0100, "SS"
wrote:

I suppose it depends on the % of perfection you want, I use a tripods
because I always get camera shake so even with the cheapest tripod I get a
vast improvement in pictures. The truth is to get 100% stability it would an
extremely heavy and costly device I fear.

Have you tried a monopod?

A monopod gives you a very useful increase in stability at a much
lower penalty than a tripod in terms of bulk and weight.

What's more for many uses you can avoid the head and its flexure
problems completely and just bolt the camera directly to the monopod.

--
Chris Malcolm

On 10-04-04 6:17 , Chris Malcolm wrote:
In rec.photo.digital wrote:
On Sat, 3 Apr 2010 15:39:51 +0100,
wrote:

I suppose it depends on the % of perfection you want, I use a tripods
because I always get camera shake so even with the cheapest tripod I get a
vast improvement in pictures. The truth is to get 100% stability it would an
extremely heavy and costly device I fear.

Have you tried a monopod?

A monopod gives you a very useful increase in stability at a much
lower penalty than a tripod in terms of bulk and weight.

What's more for many uses you can avoid the head and its flexure
problems completely and just bolt the camera directly to the monopod.

Impractical for most use.

--
gmail originated posts are filtered due to spam.

Alan Browne wrote:
On 10-04-04 6:17 , Chris Malcolm wrote:
In rec.photo.digital wrote:
On Sat, 3 Apr 2010 15:39:51 +0100,
wrote:

I suppose it depends on the % of perfection you want, I use a tripods
because I always get camera shake so even with the cheapest tripod I
get a
vast improvement in pictures. The truth is to get 100% stability it
would an
extremely heavy and costly device I fear.

Have you tried a monopod?

A monopod gives you a very useful increase in stability at a much
lower penalty than a tripod in terms of bulk and weight.

What's more for many uses you can avoid the head and its flexure
problems completely and just bolt the camera directly to the monopod.

Impractical for most use.

Really?? I have rarely used a head when I shoot with my monopod. I bolt
the lens to it, and have good balance.

--
john mcwilliams

On 10-04-04 10:51 , John McWilliams wrote:
Alan Browne wrote:
On 10-04-04 6:17 , Chris Malcolm wrote:
In rec.photo.digital wrote:
On Sat, 3 Apr 2010 15:39:51 +0100,
wrote:

I suppose it depends on the % of perfection you want, I use a tripods
because I always get camera shake so even with the cheapest tripod
I get a
vast improvement in pictures. The truth is to get 100% stability it
would an
extremely heavy and costly device I fear.

Have you tried a monopod?

A monopod gives you a very useful increase in stability at a much
lower penalty than a tripod in terms of bulk and weight.

What's more for many uses you can avoid the head and its flexure
problems completely and just bolt the camera directly to the monopod.

Impractical for most use.

Really?? I have rarely used a head when I shoot with my monopod. I bolt
the lens to it, and have good balance.

It would depend on subject matter and manner of shooting. If it works
for you then I retract what I said.

For me I need the ability to tilt whether the subject is really close
and low, or a little further and quite high up. I have used a ball head
(a bit clumsy) and a "monopod head" (much better).

Having said that, my monopod hardly gets used. I might even sell it
next week at the camera flea market. (I have a half table and will be
getting rid of odds and ends).

--
gmail originated posts are filtered due to spam.

On 10-04-04 10:51 , John McWilliams wrote:
Alan Browne wrote:
On 10-04-04 6:17 , Chris Malcolm wrote:
In rec.photo.digital wrote:
On Sat, 3 Apr 2010 15:39:51 +0100,
wrote:

I suppose it depends on the % of perfection you want, I use a tripods
because I always get camera shake so even with the cheapest tripod
I get a
vast improvement in pictures. The truth is to get 100% stability it
would an
extremely heavy and costly device I fear.

Have you tried a monopod?

A monopod gives you a very useful increase in stability at a much
lower penalty than a tripod in terms of bulk and weight.

What's more for many uses you can avoid the head and its flexure
problems completely and just bolt the camera directly to the monopod.

Impractical for most use.

Really?? I have rarely used a head when I shoot with my monopod. I bolt
the lens to it, and have good balance.

.... and as an aside to my other post, you can mount the QR plate
sideways and then use the tilt for a portrait orientation ... quite
difficult if you're bolted straight to it (except for longer lenses with
a collar of course).

--
gmail originated posts are filtered due to spam.

Alan Browne wrote:
On 10-04-04 10:51 , John McWilliams wrote:
Alan Browne wrote:
On 10-04-04 6:17 , Chris Malcolm wrote:
In rec.photo.digital wrote:


What's more for many uses you can avoid the head and its flexure
problems completely and just bolt the camera directly to the monopod.

Impractical for most use.

Really?? I have rarely used a head when I shoot with my monopod. I bolt
the lens to it, and have good balance.

It would depend on subject matter and manner of shooting. If it works
for you then I retract what I said.

For me I need the ability to tilt whether the subject is really close
and low, or a little further and quite high up. I have used a ball head
(a bit clumsy) and a "monopod head" (much better).

Yes, usage dictates the practicality. I've shot a lot of sports, mainly
lacrosse and football of both types, tennis, basket and base ball, and
with a 70-200 2.8 L glass with a 1.4 extender on a 1.6x Canon DSLR.-

Anything particularly low or high, I'd go handheld or perhaps tripod.

--
john mcwilliams

In rec.photo.digital Alan Browne wrote:
On 10-04-04 6:17 , Chris Malcolm wrote:
In rec.photo.digital wrote:
On Sat, 3 Apr 2010 15:39:51 +0100,
wrote:

I suppose it depends on the % of perfection you want, I use a tripods
because I always get camera shake so even with the cheapest tripod I get a
vast improvement in pictures. The truth is to get 100% stability it would an
extremely heavy and costly device I fear.

Have you tried a monopod?

A monopod gives you a very useful increase in stability at a much
lower penalty than a tripod in terms of bulk and weight.

What's more for many uses you can avoid the head and its flexure
problems completely and just bolt the camera directly to the monopod.

Impractical for most use.

Not for me. It's how I nearly always carry my camera -- bolted to the
top of a monopod. When I want a more extreme angle than can be
accomodated with its foot on the ground it's often possible to lean it
against something. And if not, it's still more stable handheld on the
'pod than simply hand held.

For those rare times when I really need it I always have a ball head
in my pocket.

--
Chris Malcolm

"Chris Malcolm" wrote in message
...
In rec.photo.digital Alan Browne
wrote:
On 10-04-04 6:17 , Chris Malcolm wrote:
In rec.photo.digital wrote:
On Sat, 3 Apr 2010 15:39:51 +0100,
wrote:

I suppose it depends on the % of perfection you want, I use a tripods
because I always get camera shake so even with the cheapest tripod I
get a
vast improvement in pictures. The truth is to get 100% stability it
would an
extremely heavy and costly device I fear.

Have you tried a monopod?

A monopod gives you a very useful increase in stability at a much
lower penalty than a tripod in terms of bulk and weight.

What's more for many uses you can avoid the head and its flexure
problems completely and just bolt the camera directly to the monopod.

Impractical for most use.

Not for me. It's how I nearly always carry my camera -- bolted to the
top of a monopod. When I want a more extreme angle than can be
accomodated with its foot on the ground it's often possible to lean it
against something. And if not, it's still more stable handheld on the
'pod than simply hand held.

For those rare times when I really need it I always have a ball head
in my pocket.

--
Chris Malcolm


I figure it's just a matter of time till camera manufacturers configure
image stabilization systems to clear up whatever minor vibrations are
inherent in a tripod / monopod support. Look for tripod IS database
configuration systems similar to lens anomaly compensation systems currently
in use. Vibration compensation data for the various tripods would tell the
IS system what to monitor, and how much to compensate, and presto, perfectly
still images.

That's the kind of crutch that will really sell ...

Take Care,
Dudley