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Thread: Greater ease of use with tripod head?

  1. #11

    Join Date
    Jan 2001
    Posts
    4,589

    Greater ease of use with tripod head?

    I thought that I posted this once before, but Gawd knows where it ended up. Anyhow, keep the Tiltall, but replace the Tiltall column and pan/tilt head with a column from Gitzo and an Acratech ball head (or a Slik 700DX if you prefer pan/tilt head with built-in quick release).
    Wilhelm (Sarasota)

  2. #12

    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    Maine
    Posts
    190

    Greater ease of use with tripod head?

    I just picked up a manfrotto catalog last week from my local photo shop. I had both the 405, and 410 priced. The 405 was over $300, where the 410 was $187. I am sure they can be had cheaper on line. The 410 has a height of 5.1", 2.6 lbs, max weight 11 lbs.

  3. #13

    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Posts
    1,219

    Greater ease of use with tripod head?

    Thanks for all the good advice. The 410 sounds wonderful, but at 2.6 lbs, I would have to find a tripod weighing less about 3 lbs for the combination to be as light as my Tilt-All. I could be wrong, but I don't think there is such a thing which can support a view camera, even my Toho coming in at about 3.5 lbs. So can we give it another try? Tripod plus head should be less than 6 lbs, if possible, but they don't have to support very much.

  4. #14

    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Posts
    832

    Greater ease of use with tripod head?

    Leonard, if you do photography only (or largely) where you can roll something like a golf bag caddy, then maybe we can work on a combination setup that converts the handle to a tripod head mount. You stop, drop a leg from the handle, lock the wheels, and snap the head on. Does this sound like it might be a feasible approach?

  5. #15

    Greater ease of use with tripod head?

    My Tiltall dates from 1976 if I remember correctly. When it was new I carefully leveled it up on a floor that I knew was level and then marked the "0" positions on the tilt head by making scratch lines with a Swiss needle file. When I set up the tripod my normal operating procedure is to plop a little bubble level on the head and then adjust the leg length until the platform is level. Then I only need to tilt the head on those occassions when I need more rising front than the ordinary camera adjustments can handle. With practice, this is very fast.

  6. #16

    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    Aurora, Colorado
    Posts
    526

    Greater ease of use with tripod head?

    Leonard,

    This thread is very timely. I just started looking for a pan and tilt head to take backpacking. I'm tired of struggling with a ballhead and I'd like to save some weight too. The head that piqued my interest is the Bogen 3437.

    Priced at about $85 and weighing in at a mere 15 ounces, it's very tempting It has a spirit level which I'm guessing will be useless with an LF camera mounted on it. The downside? It's only rated for 6.6 pounds. However, my Tachihara with my heaviest lens shouldn't be much more than five and a half pounds.

    I haven't seen or handled one of these so I don't know how smooth the movements are or how firmly they lock or how much the head might flex but it's only 15 ounces. I sure would like to take a closer look at one.

    Cheers,
    Never is always wrong; always is never right.

    www.LostManPhoto.com
    www.MarkStahlkePhotography.com

  7. #17

    Join Date
    Jul 1998
    Location
    Lund, Sweden
    Posts
    2,214

    Greater ease of use with tripod head?

    I lug my Gitzo 1349 around for everything. For LF I use a Sinar pan-tilt head and no center column, for smaller formats I swap in the column and use an Arca ballhead. It's a bombproof and easy to use system, but over your weight limit. I have never missed geared motion on my heads as I use my monorail's movements for fine tuning of the composition. I really appreciate having heads that don't shift as you lock them down.

    If I had the budget for another spendy tripod I would get one of the newish Gitzo CF levelling tripods and put a small video head on it.

    Tripods: http://www.gitzo.com/products/metric...ghtscreen.php3

    Gitzo G2380 video head: http://www.gitzo.com/products/metric...ghtscreen.php3

    This will come to just under seven pounds weight. You can reduce that to your six pount limit if you get a smaller head, such as the Bogen 3126, but you'll lose a the smoothness of the Gitzo.

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