This is the least important decision you have to make. Don't let
anyone tell you that you are a girlie-man if you buy Bogen instead of
Gitzo. The fact of the matter is that if you were really serious,
you'd be using a Ries wooden tripod. "Wood absorbs vibration and
metal transmits/reflects it," is how the view camera perfectionists
put it. However, the user interface and flexibility of wood tripods
is so poor that only a few diehards are able to resist the charms of
metal legsets.
Make sure that whatever you get, it is tall enough that you can use it
comfortably without extending the center column. Think about it: if
you raise the center column, your camera is flapping around in the
breeze supported by only one tube. If you push it down, you get your
camera supported by three legs as advertised.
Two companies make the vast majority of legsets used by professionals,
Gitzo and Bogen (Manfrotto outside the U.S.). Gitzo is made in France
and reflects Continental Rationalism. If you don't carefully adhere
to the correct method of loosening and tightening the leg locks, it
will take you an annoying minute or two to sort everything back out.
Bogen is made in Italy by Manfrotto and reflects Mediterranean chaos.
The leg locks are marvelous little spring-loaded flick levers (or
wing-type screws on some of the smallest ones) and you can lock or
unlock them in any order. Both brands offer adjustable leg angle,
which is nice for uneven ground, slopes, and resting a leg on an
overlook barrier. Both also offer reversible center columns, for
hanging the camera inches from the ground.
Gitzo is more expensive but has the advantage that there are no little
parts to lose or wear out. The legs are made of heavyweight aluminum
or carbon fiber. I fell in love with Gitzo's wonderfully light
(weighs 3 lbs, supports 15) carbon fiber Mountaineer tripod ($500)
during five weeks in Italy. It is dead, dead, dead. Dead. I'm six
feet tall and expected that the lack of height (52 inches or 61 with
the center column up) would be annoying, but somehow I hardly noticed
bending down a bit. [An Inter-Pro Studex version is coming out in
September 1996 that will be about 30% lighter than the aluminum alloy
counterpart, but will rise to the same height (61 inches or 76 inches
with center column; should weigh about 4.2 lbs and sell for about
$750).]
The standard Bogen legset is the 3021 ($85), which comes with the
spring-loaded flip locks. It weighs about 6 lbs, rises up to a
comfortable working height for tall people (with no center column
extension), and will support everything from heavy 35mm through
lightweight 4x5. If you go into the wilderness, plan to carry the
supplied plastic wrench for adjusting the leg locks should they loosen
up. Kirk Enterprises (107 Lange Lane,
Angola, IN 46703, (800) 626-5074) will modify the 3021 somehow so that
one can get even closer to the ground, but I haven't tried this. A
lot of folks prefer using a Bogen Superclamp attached to a tripod leg,
with a small ballhead at the end of the clamp.
[If you get a Bogen, make sure you get the nifty strap that screws
into the top and wraps around the legs. You might also consider
paying the extra $13 to get the black anodized finish; the bright
silver legs can turn into annoying reflections if you are doing
close-ups of shiny objects.]
I've always liked the idea of the floppy Benbo tripods but have never
been able to lock them down enough to get rigidity at a low camera
angle. I think the Gitzos and Bogens have enough flexibility that
Benbo need not be investigated. If you really want to do something
weird, you might be better off with a Bogen Magic Arm.
The Head
If you are doing architecture, you want a three-way panhead in which
each axis is separately controlled. Otherwise, you'll probably find a
ballhead vastly more convenient.
With a really good ballhead, you can smoothly follow an animal with a
300/2.8 lens and take your hands off the lens without having it flop
towards the ground.
Of the ballheads that I've personally used, my favorite for feel and
function is the ARCA Swiss B1. This is the head that almost every
serious photographer seems to end up with and my only source of sorrow
is that I blew about $330 on a FOBA Superball before I found out about
it. The ARCA is half the weight of the FOBA, able to support more
weight, and has a very interesting patented feature: progressive
resistance. That means when you've adjusted the tension for a 300/2.8
that is approximately level, the ARCA automatically increases the
tensions as the lens is pointed down a bit (so that the lens doesn't
flop down catastrophically). Whatever you get, if you spend $400 for a
head, make sure you protect it from knocks. I wasn't super careful with
my FOBA and it became useless. Sinar Bron does not stand behind the
product and I would have been out of luck except that Jeff Hirsch at
Fotocare in NY (see where to buy) bailed
me out.
If you really want to save money and yet not get something that is
complete junk, try the Bogen 3038 ($150 at B&H) which comes with an
integral hex plate Q/R. In fact, the quick release has a really nice
locking feature that I've not seen on other Bogen products. If you
intend to leave your camera on the tripod and carry the assemblage
around for awhile, this would tend to inspire confidence. In any
case, the 3038 is about the same size and weight as the FOBA and is
strong enough to take a 4x5 or supertele. It is hard to describe why
the overall experience with the 3038 isn't as good as with the FOBA
but it clearly isn't. I think it comes down to smoothness and the use
of a lubricant on the 3038, which I've played with but never used
extensively.
An interesting design that I haven't tried is the NPC pseudo-ballhead.
This has an innovative design that locks the center of the ball rather
than standard method of pushing the ball into the socket (this changes
your composition slightly, somewhat irritating with a big lens
especially). The head is reasonably priced ($225) and apparently well
made, but allegedly is a pan/tilt head that is not really a suitable
substitute for a traditional ballhead design (this is a paraphrase of
some vitriolic comments by ex-users).
If you aren't planning to use a medium format camera, a super-tele, or
a 4x5, you might want to investigate smaller ballheads. Even if you
can afford the aforementioned heads, you won't enjoy carrying the
weight. The FOBA mini super ball ($200) looks great, but I've never
owned one and Sinar Bron's attitude is discouraging. I've tried the
really cheap Bogen 3262QR ($40) and it works OK but the lack of
tension means that you risk "dumping" the camera/lens combination.
Plus, the unit seems to depend on grease for smoothness and your hands
get kind of filthy if you aren't careful about where you touch your
gear. I wasn't sorry when it was stolen.
Quick Release
All I know is that I have to have a quick release. I have to be able
to mate and unmate my camera quickly or the whole tripod is too much
of a hassle to use and carry.
The gold standard in quick release is the "ARCA Swiss-style". Bryan
Geyer, the owner of Really Right Stuff (http://www.reallyrightstuff.com;
P.O. Box 6531, Los Osos, CA
93412, (805) 528-6321), makes the biggest selection of plates (137 in
June 1995) in this style so I asked him to articulate his devotion to
it. "The problem with the Sachtler, Bogen, and Linhof releases is
that they have a fixed cavity size. You should be able to use a big
plate for a big item like a 600/4 lens and a small plate for a small
item like a body. Our plates range in size from 1.4 inches to 7.3
inches long.
Another thing that is wrong with the Sachtler, Bogen, and Linhof
approach is that their plates are all flat-topped and therefore free
to twist or pivot on whatever equipment they are attached to. Even if
your lens lets you rotate the body without tilting the tripod head,
you still might want to shoulder the tripod and not have the plate twist.
Each of our plates has a flange of channel that keeps the lens or
body from twisting.
"A final consideration is that it is really ugly to have a big plate
poking out from under your camera. ARCA Swiss-style plates conform to
the size and shape of the equipment."
I used to be a Bogen hex plate user but Bryan Geyer persuaded me with
his reasoning and his superbly machined products. I leave his plates
on my cameras all the time and they never get in the way. I miss the
positive "snap-in" that I got with the Bogen system, but not as much
as I thought I would. If you want to get into the ARCA Swiss-style
system you have to either buy a ballhead that comes with it or get a
whole setup from Bryan.
If you want something cheap that works, Bogen sells a range of Q/R
systems, the biggest of which is their old hex plate system. It is
big enough to carry a 4x5 view camera with ease ($30 plus $12 for
extra plates). There are a bunch of more expensive ($70-130) systems
out there that look potentially better than the Bogen, but I'm not yet
convinced that any are. The Linhof one looks nice. When I was
looking for something lightweight, I've tried cheap systems such as
the Cullman, but they are inadequately rigid.
References
The Really Right Stuff catalog (available from P.O. Box 6531, Los
Osos, CA 93412, (805) 528-6321) contains a fairly comprehensive
comparative test of ballheads. The short story is that the ARCA Swiss
B1 crushes the competition.
