L'Arc de Tripod

" You weesh to buy ze bes' tripod in ze shop, Monsieur? I weell show eet to you, but you mus' unner stan' eet is not for jus'anyone. Ah, non. Thees tripod ees only for the mos' sophisticated and important people. No peasant need apply..."

The Gitzo company has always made the best heavy supports in the industry. I know Linhof used to bang on about theirs but Gitzo managed to get the stability with more style. And Gitzo have adapted to new materials and a new age and have poineered new concepts. None of which has anything to do with the tripod in the pictures.

This is a step back in time as the company has copied one of their classics of the 1960's and produced a repro travel tripod that recalls the film era. It has metal legs. It has metal castings. It has rubber feet. The ball head has a particularly smooth action and the classic Gitzo quick release plate. Note the metal parts are finished with the traditional hammertone finish. The whole is professional in the extreme.

But not heavy. This is a surprise to me as I have a Studex 5 from this same firm and it is so massive as to generate its own gravity. It does not move from the studio as I do not wish to ruin my back. The Gitzo here in the shop is light enough to take on any airplane and as you'll see it comes in the most elegant travel case that you have ever seen. Fitted leather with a padded shoulder strap.

Note, sophisticates - this is a rare tripod. Your friends will not have one, nor are they likely to be able to find one. You will be the envy of their eye, as well as achieving steady pictures.

The Low Priced Spread - Surprisingly Nutritious

Every so often something pops up here in the shop that surprises me. That's why we keep a big can of Mortein handy...boom boom...

No, really - we get products that do not attract the attention they deserve. One of which is this unassuming little travel tripod from Weifeng  - the WF 6615. The numbering tells me that it s probably made by the same people who make Fancier and we have had some good tripods from them in the past.

The older ones were extremely good value for money, but heavy. This latest offering goes the other way - it is a travel tripod that tries to give the most stability for smallest size and weight. I think it succeeds admirably.

Cynics and smart-alecs will look at a lot of products and mumble the names of their competitors and try to suggest that they are a knock-off. Perhaps, but when you consider the price, they are not rip-offs. This little tripod walks out of the door ( on three legs...) for a measly $ 149.

The quick release plate on the top is Arca-size so you can interchange it onto a lot of other gear . Gone, I fervently pray, are the days of Optex and Vanguard and Uncle Fred's Tripod and Bait Shoppe brand tripods that had their own mutually incompatible plates. We regularly see sad hopefuls trolling the streets for old unmatchable plates and it means trouble. Weifeng at least decided to copy the one of the main players.

There is a securing post on the underside of the quick release holder as well as a green bubble level that are a touch that might well be copied by other manufacturers - they are actually useful. The whole thing even comes in a bag for that price.

Jason says Weifeng is a first name, so maybe that's who makes them...Uncle Weifeng.

Sticking To Your Post - With Manfrotto And Cullmann

Saturday night last was a  revelation for me. I attended a hafla - a dance show for Middle Eastern dance - at a local school auditorium. The evening was four hours of wonderful dancing to terrible music by talented dancers in colourful costumes. I hasten to add that the experience is not new - I do a half dozen of these a year. What was new was the equipment I took along.

Camera the same, flash the same, flash bracket the same...even the same old sandwich and bottle of beer in the camera case. The new bit was the monopod.

Four hours of holding a heavy DSLR rig is no fun, particularly if you are in a kneeling rifleman's position. Eventually your arms start to ache. This time I supported the weight of the camera and flash assembly on a Manfrotto carbon-fibre monopod and only had to concern myself with the zooming and firing. I was able to sit on a chair for some of the time as well, and my toes thanked me for it.

The one worrisome point was the fact that I had the camera in landscape position for most of the evening - fine for the wide shots when the whole troupe comes out, but it meant some cropping for portrait orientation on individual dancers. Fortunately my Nikon camera at 400ISO will support this sort of trimming and the resultant images should be all that the dancers could desire.

Oh, the blessed relief to be able to let the Earth support the weight and just move the camera around.

It struck me that the video people would also appreciate this facility with the dedicated Manfrotto monopod you see in the heading photograph. The thing stands fully a man's height and is in itself heavy enough to take even large video rigs. The fluid head means smooth pan and tilt and the monopod is equipped with a very wide-pread foot for use in boggy ground. There is a self-centering mechanism in that foot that basically allows the monopod to stand upright of its own accord, as long as there is no camera on top.

I know that sounds silly, but it allows you an extra degree of flexibility when you are mounting our dismounting the rig if no-one is there to stabilise it for you. You can't expect it to balance the full rig without you holding on.

I know monopods are not new to Perth photographers, and they are in the basic pack of many sports shooters. But there may be far more uses for the theatre and wedding people - particularly if they want to make use of lower light and a slower shutter speed. I know I was able to drop my basic speed to 1/15 second for the dancers - the flash froze them, the background burned in, and there are the occasional little speed lines where a fringe of beads moved. Magic.