Tripod for 300 4.0 with 2x teleconverter.

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Hi ! I own two tripods, Benbo 1 and Manfroto 055 with Manfroto 410 gear head however non of these units are capable of handling Nikon F 80/65 with 300mm 4.0 and 2x extender. My problem is with very fine vibra- tion caused by mirror mechanism and/or wind. I will appreciate any constructive idea. Thanks Alois

-- Alois Lazecky (alois_lazecky@pch.gc.ca), August 16, 2001

Answers

Yep, vibration is always the killer. Here's 3 suggestions in reverse order of personal preference:

1) Use both tripods. One on the body, and one on the lens. Drawback; it's cumbersome to set up and use.

2) Hang the whole lot off the camera body and ignore the lens mount. This seems to work because you don't get the 'see-saw' effect of a balanced lens mount. Drawback; the camera body has to be strong enough to take all the weight, and there's a tendency for the tripod to droop.

3) Use a tripod on the lens mount only, but keep your hands on the camera body to release the shutter. Your hands are very good at damping the high frequency wibrations that do the damage. Drawback; you can't let yourself get too excited.

I've wasted quite a few rolls of film trying to nail this problem, and option (3) is my preferred solution. The hands-on approach gave sharper results than using mirror-up, self-timer release, or a cable release under similar conditions. A bean bag and a car roof or stone wall beats any of the above methods, BTW.
I also have a Benbo tripod, and while it's very versatile, I don't rate it very highly as a stable shooting platform.
Good light and good luck!

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), August 17, 2001.


Wibrations?
Good gwief, my fingers have developed a speech impediment!

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), August 17, 2001.

I found,using a 500 mirror lens, that by hanging a weight(camera bag & lenses from the bottom of the tripod centre column with a 'S' hook helped in reducing vibrations. I use a rather large Manfrotto tripod that vibrated with longer lenses. Bigger is not always better with tripods. Ansel Adams commented that when using a very big tripod that he used for 4x5 & 8X10 he had vibration when using a Hasselblad!!

-- Melvin (bramley@nanaimo.ark.com), August 18, 2001.

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