I'm trying to make a choice of various tripods and heads for a specific use which is mostly macro photography while hiking in rough rocky/swampy/sandy/crawl around on my hands and knees terrain. Mostly plant pictures, trying to document the various plant species here and to show them at various stages of growth. Big plants (trees) to little tiny ones. Water plants that require hanging over a water pool or a pond to get a floating plant without getting my boots soaked! Eye level photos of tiny orchids. Lovely moss and lichens, cranberries, thorns....you get the picture!
I've been taking these plant photos for a number of years but recently gave up on the low quality small chip cameras (I used the Minolta Dimage 7 and A2 with a Velbond Maxi) and bought a Nikon D90 and 60 mm macro and 18-200 for general purpose. Still coming to grips with how big and heavy they are! Oh well, the older (lighter!) equipment did get me to over 300 species so far though, although I look forward to improving the quality of them as I see them.
As well as wind, mosquitoes and bears, we also can have snow and cold from October to March/April and even longer at higher elevations. I want/need simplicity in setup, as light as possible and as small as possible. I see many different plants on an outing and take a number of different photos of each, especially when hiking in a new area. Living in the mountains means I also take lots of landscape photos. Weightwise, I don't anticipate buying a big telephoto (and needing to hire a kid to carry it for me.)
I'm looking at the gitzo 2541EX and either the acratech ultimate head (or GV2?) or the gitzo 2750QR off-center head. These appeal because getting the tripod flat can often be difficult if plunked down in bushes or on swampy ground or at a rock face. Taking plant pictures often calls for portrait orientation just as much as horizontal so simple switching is a need. What I'd like is to hear from people with either setup. But I'd also like to see "action" photos of camera/tripod head setups to visualize what works best.
Additionally, I read in various forums that the offset center column compromises rigidity. People talk about using a "normal" head and focusing rail and an L-bracket all mounted on a "normal" tripod as giving what they need. Or clamping to tripod legs or different center columns. However, I can't find pictures of HOW they use these setups. It sounds appealing, more stability, lighter tripods, more choice in tripods but I'm concerned about flexibility. And I want pretty rugged gear that will stand up. (Thus my finding the Gitzo explorer series interesting.)
I don't want to get sidetracked by RRS vs Kirk vs..... or Gitzo vs Manfrotto vs..... I just want to learn more about how others actually take their tricky access-limited pictures tripod, head, L-plate, rail?. And assuming most of you have cameras, pictures would be great.
Living in a remote town makes it difficult to go shopping and look at various tripod/head setups, so I thought I'd throw my quest out here.
Thanks.
I've been taking these plant photos for a number of years but recently gave up on the low quality small chip cameras (I used the Minolta Dimage 7 and A2 with a Velbond Maxi) and bought a Nikon D90 and 60 mm macro and 18-200 for general purpose. Still coming to grips with how big and heavy they are! Oh well, the older (lighter!) equipment did get me to over 300 species so far though, although I look forward to improving the quality of them as I see them.
As well as wind, mosquitoes and bears, we also can have snow and cold from October to March/April and even longer at higher elevations. I want/need simplicity in setup, as light as possible and as small as possible. I see many different plants on an outing and take a number of different photos of each, especially when hiking in a new area. Living in the mountains means I also take lots of landscape photos. Weightwise, I don't anticipate buying a big telephoto (and needing to hire a kid to carry it for me.)
I'm looking at the gitzo 2541EX and either the acratech ultimate head (or GV2?) or the gitzo 2750QR off-center head. These appeal because getting the tripod flat can often be difficult if plunked down in bushes or on swampy ground or at a rock face. Taking plant pictures often calls for portrait orientation just as much as horizontal so simple switching is a need. What I'd like is to hear from people with either setup. But I'd also like to see "action" photos of camera/tripod head setups to visualize what works best.
Additionally, I read in various forums that the offset center column compromises rigidity. People talk about using a "normal" head and focusing rail and an L-bracket all mounted on a "normal" tripod as giving what they need. Or clamping to tripod legs or different center columns. However, I can't find pictures of HOW they use these setups. It sounds appealing, more stability, lighter tripods, more choice in tripods but I'm concerned about flexibility. And I want pretty rugged gear that will stand up. (Thus my finding the Gitzo explorer series interesting.)
I don't want to get sidetracked by RRS vs Kirk vs..... or Gitzo vs Manfrotto vs..... I just want to learn more about how others actually take their tricky access-limited pictures tripod, head, L-plate, rail?. And assuming most of you have cameras, pictures would be great.
Living in a remote town makes it difficult to go shopping and look at various tripod/head setups, so I thought I'd throw my quest out here.
Thanks.
