Thanks Jose,
yes 10kg is a lot, but seeing how there doesn't seem to be a standard, it seems like a decent ball-parkish figure to use. It sounds like a series 2 or 3 would be ok for my use. I'm still very impressed with the idea of the Novoflex, and it doesn't seem any more pricey than a similar tripod from RRS or GItzo, yet would allow me to swap out legs and have different sets for different uses (e.g. light for travel/carrying, heavier for when I can drive or need a lot of support).
Does anyone here actually use Novoflex, or seen one in use?
Bernice, wood is lovely, it's just too heavy! If I were driving to the location or had a Sherpa with me, I'd definitely consider it. (Maybe that's what Joe was referring to with the "wife" he spoke of? :-p). But wandering around the mountains on my own, or even spending 4-5 hours walking around downtown at night, it has to be something reasonably light and compact enough to carry for extended periods of time.
Andrew, I've seen the Siruis and they look good, until I learned that they are actually cheap Chinese knock-offs. I'd rather support the locals, be it German, American, French/Italian, or Japanese. Yes, they cost more, but I'm paying for original know-how and engineering, rather than someone's lax relationship with IP.
I'm wondering if a ball head is really necessary. Leg adjustments for rough settings, movements for fine tuning? Maybe a simple leveling head with 10-15 degrees of play would be enough? It would be a whole lot lighter...!
I also found this site recently, which does scientific comparisons of a range of tripod's stability and damping:
https://thecentercolumn.com/
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