Video head

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wooster

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Greetings all,

I've recently tried my hand at a few timelapses and it's whetted my appetite to try some movies.

As with most people who shoot stills, I've had a camera with video facility for years. Until now I've never used it but I'm tempted to try some wildlife videos on my frequent trips to Norfolk. Early attempts at home have resulted in less than optimal results and I have an idea about buying a Mantrotto 400VH fluid head but I'm not sure if it's worth the investment or how much use I'd actually get from it.

Would this double as a head for use with my Arca ballhead on top? It seems likely that it would make using a tripod easier for stills as well. Anyone using a similar set up? Would you recommend it for video, and do you use it for stills?
 
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I dont know the tripod your looking at but keep in mind some video tripods dont have the tilt part and can be a pain for portrait view shots. Theres usually a work around but I hated using a video head for photography.
 
I would not mount a ballhead on top, but there isn't any real reason why you couldn't. If the tripod is reasonably level you only need pan/tilt function for a lot of photography. Especially with a longer lens that has a tripod collar (or an L-bracket).

Back before gimbal heads were a thing we used to use video heads for wildlife photography. Some still use video heads for wildlife as everything has gotten lighter over the years. And one company has attempted to incorporate video head functions into a ball head and market it primarily to wildlife photographers.
 
wooster said:
Would this double as a head for use with my Arca ballhead on top? It seems likely that it would make using a tripod easier for stills as well. Anyone using a similar set up? Would you recommend it for video, and do you use it for stills?
Click to expand...

I have a fluid head on my tripod, it takes the larger Manfrotto 501PL quick release plate which i have fitted to the bottom of my video camera. I bought a spare plate and fitted an Arca swiss plate to that (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B071FBXHNN/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) this way I can either fit the video camera or by quickly swapping plates i can use it with all my other cameras that have Arca Swiss plates on them. It works quite well.

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Thank you for your replies which I appreciate. I will probably buy an Arca plate for it as you @ScottT have done.

@sk66 yes i've read about wildlife use and that's really why I wanted it. I am planning to video some bird/wildlife in Norfolk this er... summer( ? )

@swanseamale47 vis a vis portrait format shots, I have an L bracket so I'm assuming I should be fine anyway. It should solve the issue I'm hoping . Does this seem right?

Thank
 
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