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Thread: LF from the top of a ladder

  1. #1

    Join Date
    Mar 2004
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    LF from the top of a ladder

    I recently bought a nice ladder (Little Giant-style) expressly for photo purposes. Primarily it is for use with my Widelux (35mm), which desperately needs rise at least 80-90% of the time (at least for my imagery). I also expect to use it with LF, first to shoot over fences and other obstructions, and maybe secondarily to get more rise than the camera provides, e.g. in narrow alleyways.

    The top step of the ladder provides an adequate platform to set an LF camera down on it and take a straight shot. Of course it would be nice to have tripod head movements (as well as security and rigidity).

    Has anyone tried attaching a tripod head to a ladder? Successfully? I'm also thinking that there may be a way to lash a tripod temporarily to the ladder, to make use of the head. Or maybe not... The point is I don't know that I will be using this technique often enough to want to buy and dedicate a new head to it.

    TIA,

  2. #2

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    LF from the top of a ladder

    Get a head and screw it to the top of the ladder.

  3. #3
    Moderator Ralph Barker's Avatar
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    LF from the top of a ladder

    Bogen/Manfrotto and Matthews Grip make various clamps that could be adapted to attach a head. Combined with a monopod at the front of the camera to prevent twisting, it should be solid enough.




    Not LF, but you get the idea. ;-)


  4. #4

    LF from the top of a ladder

    I bought a ladder for the same purposes. I have one system for using the top of the step ladder but I may switch to just using a 3047 head. Time and experience will tell. Come the time to try my 3047 head I will just buy a 3/8 bolt of the appropriate thread and put it through a board which I'll fasten to the top step of the ladder. I don't antacipate any complications...

    Cheers,

  5. #5
    Whatever David A. Goldfarb's Avatar
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    LF from the top of a ladder

    I'd just put a bolt through the platform, as others have suggested.

    Another alternative is to use a really tall tripod with the ladder, like a Majestic with extension legs and the rapid column inside the geared column. I got one of these briefly as part of an architectural photographer's estate lot, but didn't really need it, so I sold it. It was really tall.

    I think on Clyde Butcher's site, I've seen some reference to a 14 foot fiberglass surveyor's tripod that he's adapted.

  6. #6

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    LF from the top of a ladder

    Ladders aren't for cameras, they are for models. Charis Wilson recited a limerick confirming this; while Titian was mixing rose madder, his model was posed on a ladder, the postion to Titian suggested coition, so he ran up the ladder and had her.

  7. #7

    Join Date
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    LF from the top of a ladder

    I drilled a hole on top of a 10 ft orchard lagger and mounted a tripod head to the ladder. It has worked for years.

    steve simmons

  8. #8

    LF from the top of a ladder

    Considering the same option myself.

    Any ladder that would be used on unpredictable but modestly undulating terrain (what I would expect in the field) must have variable adjustment leg lengths and be solid. Many that I have seen are fixed length and I feel are for the most part useless unless used under the most perfect of flat conditions. Safety must be the highest priority.

    Secondly, attaching a tripod head to a Little Giant or equivelant with the pivot at the end of the top of the leg versus the conventional flat rectangular plate gets a bit more complicated.

    I could see a custom wooden device that you could put over the top of the tripod built at the same angle as the open angle of the ladder and a set of cords that would go underneath to achor it to the ladder. Mounting a 3/8" bolt from the bottom and a large metal washer under the platform would insure that the camera would be stable when mounted.

    Of particular concern to me would be long timed exposures while your body weight would bo on the ladder. Lenses longer than about 17" would be dificult to reach the front of the lens board without rotating the camera around back to you to make the necessary adjustments and then rotate back to the riginal shooting position. It could however be done.

    Good Luck!

  9. #9

    Join Date
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    LF from the top of a ladder

    >>Any ladder that would be used on unpredictable but modestly undulating terrain (what I would expect in the field) must have variable adjustment leg lengths and be solid.>>

    The perfect definition of an orchard ladder. With a 10' ladder and a long cable release it can be reached from the gound when making the exposure.

    steve simmons

  10. #10

    LF from the top of a ladder

    Point me int he direction of an orchard ladder Steve. I would love to check one out.

    Cheers!

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