The Light Touch
•Equipment
Touch the Light.....
John MacPherson
Landscape and Environmental Photography from Scotland
A tripod can do more for your photography than any other piece of equipment you can buy. A good tripod is a wonderfully liberating piece of kit. A bad tripod is a curse on your photography that you will never shake off. A steady, rigid tripod will improve image sharpness remarkably. A flimsy, wobbly tripod will noticeably degrade image sharpness. Simple as that.
After using Bogen/Manfrotto products for many years, and putting up with the limitations imposed by the quality of their heads, I finally raided the piggy bank and invested in a proper outfit: Arca-Swiss B1 ballhead and Gitzo carbonfibre legs (model 1348). To couple the camera equipment to the head requires mounting plates - I chose the Really Right Stuff designs from the USA. Custom made to fit perfectly to your gear these plates are second to none. This is emphatically NOT a cheap set-up but it provides a level of stability and rigidity, coupled with ease of use, that is pretty hard to beat. The Arca-Swiss B1 is widely regarded as the best ballhead that you can buy, holding very heavy loads without ball 'creep', and its elliptical ball design prevents heavy camera/lens loads from 'flopping' to the side. My old Manfrotto ballhead crushed my thumbs on many occasions as it toppled to the side with a motordriven EOS and 35-350 on top. Carbonfibre is expensive stuff but is very strong and rigid and Gitzo make some of the best legs in the business. The combination I chose may not suit your needs, but as a reasonably tall person I feel more comfortable with a bit extra leg length, and the 1348 is perfect for me.
Forget that new 'sharper' lens - get a decent tripod instead and see just how sharp your existing kit can be if used properly!
•Tripod
