Waterproof tripod leg covers? How to protect when shooting in salty water, mud, etc?

[Doremus Scudder]

I use both aluminum and wooden tripods and just set them up in the mud, sand, water, whatever. I try not to get dirt in the locking mechanisms, but other than that, I just clean them up after shooting with a rag I carry and give them a good cleaning at the end of the day. My wooden tripod is from the 19th century. I refinished it with tung oil and it has held up superbly.

Doremus

[locutus]

After ruining 2 metal tripod and one carbon fiber due to sand, mud, cold weather and water freezing in the tubes. I switched over to a wooden tripod I have not had a problem since. I photograph around water and swamps a lot and sometime the temp is sometime around 0 degrees F.

Yes let me second this, i shoot in swamps and seawater quite often and a wooden tripod has no problems at all with it and in addition to the environmental resistance you get a super robust and stable tripod.

[Old_Dick]

Richard, do you have any problem with water getting into the spikes? My concern is water would get trapped and rust them out.

[stawastawa]

This sounds like a promising idea,

Also, maybe getting 3 pieces of PVC or ABS thin walled pipe with some end caps to slip over the lower sections of the legs????

Making it a non frustrating process is up to you...

(I prefer Richards "wooden" method using a beater set of sticks...)

Steve K

Also, a tacking iron or regular iron might work to melt plastic bags together. there are some 'Tough' trashbags, or 3mil or thicker plastic might work.
Perhaps building in a PVC cup at the bottom of the bag would help prevent punctures too... Though having something too buoyant might compromise the tripod's stability (doubt it)

[jp]

I'm a big fan of tiltall tripods and used them for years, but they are not good for sand/mud/salt water for the reasons discussed in this thread.
And I shoot around those materials quite a bit and have ruined two of them, despite rinsing them off when I got home.
So I'll still say they are great tripods for other situations.

For sand/mud/salt outdoors stuff, I have become a fan of the wooden Ries tripod. They use materials that have worked well in those conditions for thousands of years. Wooden tripods are well proven if you can handle the slightly increase in size and weight over newer materials.

[Two23]

I carry a 12 pack of Trojans with me, because you just never know when you might need them.


Kent in SD

[l2oBiN]

The pvc pipes are impractical for carrying.

An idea of carrying some cling wrap might work?




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[John Layton]

I like the vacuum-seal idea - as this would be lightweight/compact, likely rugged enough as freezer-spec bags are usually a bit more rugged than non-freezer ones, and you'd have plenty of material to make quick replacements, at whatever length makes sense.

(but...really...the Go-Go boots would be stellar!)

[RichardRitter]

Vacuum sealing the legs.
Do you do this at home?
At what length does one vacuum seal the legs full closed or opened?
How does one change the height of the tripod in the field?
Is the vacuum sealer portable so if you want to change the leg length in the field you have it with you.

Looks like a lot of work and a pain.

I have been to and taught at a lot of workshops and have seem my share of good and bad equipment. At one workshop student put a brand new Ebony camera on a brand new carbon tripod tighten every thing down turned his back. I was walking up to the car watching the camera tilt over as one of the legs slowly slipped. The more it tilted over the faster it started moving. I caught it just in time. It was headed for a 4 foot drop over the edge into the stream. Stream was carved out of granite.

I have two wooden tripods one is about 40 years old the other is about 25 it's a Reiss J100 I sometime put a 20 x 24 camera on it with no problems and the camera that is put on the tripod.

But in the same time frame of 25 years I have gone through a lot of non-wooden tripods. Mud. sand . and water is almost impossible to keep out of the legs and the locking system. Water freezing in the legs or locking system is sometime very bad for he life of the tripod.

[Pfsor]

I did find a photographic store that sells these tripod leg covers, but 25euro seems a hell of a lot for a couple of pieces of plastic.

A hell of a lot, really? Perhaps not, considering the physical properties the sleeves must have. In any case, buying a wooden tripod is a hell more expensive option, it seems.