| Re: Tripod / monopod setup for Sports
Hi Bill,
If you are made of money Gitzo tripods with RRS or Arca Swiss B1 heads are popular. Personally I dislike the fiddly twist type leg locks charateristic of Gitzo products. IMO the simplicity of Manfrotto's flip type leg locks is an advantage in the field. They are easier to operate, flip to open, squeeze to close and you absolutley KNOW if a leg is locked or not at a glance.
Another advantage for us folks with kids and a morgage is cost. For a given max. weight capbility with comperable height levels, Manfrotto triopods are often lighter and almost always much less expensive than comperable Gitzo models. So far I have not seen anything to even suggest that a properly sized set of Gitzo legs are any more stable than the comperable Manfrotto legs in the field. I own both brands for field use. Carbon fiber is another issue, carbon tripods are more dampened and settle down faster but the difference is not enough (for me anyway), to pay the price of carbon pods. Carbon pods are also much more frail and tolorate less stress to the tubes in transit and seem to offer minimal weight savings for a given load capacity. I love carbon fiber as a material but I think it's better suited to F1 cars and maxi-yachts.
Here's an example, one of the most popular current Manfrotto tripods for field use with fat glass is the 3221BPRO. The Gitzo model that can match the Manfrotto specs is the classic Reporter G1224. They are very similar in size and height capability but the G1224 is a bit heavier with slightly more limited center colunme adjustability and cannot get down as low without an attachment. But the cost differential is large, $147 vs. $278 from B&H. With the $130 you save buying Manfrotto legs you can buy a better ballhead, like a RRS BH55 or AS B1.
I HIGHLY recommend RRS's new lever style AS clamps mounted on an Arca Swiss B1 or RRS ballhead! I've been using an Arca Swiss B1 that I recently equipped with the new RRS lever type clamp and this makes a world of difference in speed and reliability of clamping a lens or body to the head. I liked the new style lever clamp so much that I bought one for my monopod and second ballhead!
Ah, my second ballhead, I can very happily recomend the big Manfrotto 468 ballheads with RRS lever type AS clamp as a lower cost alternative to the RRS or AS heads. The Manfrotto 468 ballhead will give you 98.5% of what you get with the Arca Swiss B1 head (I haven't bought or used RRS's BH55 yet so can't compare it), at about 55% of the AS B1 price. With the addition of the RRS B2 AS II clamp to the Manfrotto 468 head I'm a pretty happy camper and am in the process of selling off my G1224/B1 tripod locally.
As to monopods I also prefer Manfrotto pods for the flip lock leg locks as above. It's also funny how much heavier the Gitzo monopods are for a given weight capability. If you buy a Manfrotto 681B(old 3218), you get a 1.7lbs. monopod that carries 26lbs. of gear. As a use of larger glass I like the extra stability of the fat tubes and fewer segments of this monopod. Okay, okay, so it doesn't get real small, but I usually just throw the lens and body over my shoulder with the pod attached when moving around. So for me at least, size is only important when packing up or flying where it fits fine in my checked luggage. To get this same capability from a Gitzo monopod you'll need to buy the carbon G1588 and it weights 5oz. more! I suppose you could buy an alloy G1564 and give up 10lbs. of weight capability and the stability that comes with it and you would save a bundle of money ($150 or so), but you still are going to have a stick that is 5oz. heavier for some reason and $70 more than the superior Manfrotto monopod.
I recently mounted a new RRS B2 AS II clamp directly to my big monopod (Manfrotto 3218/681B), and clamped one of my fatties (no not THAT kid of fatty), to it, this combination is awsome to use, much better than the old knob type AS clamps. I sometimes will use the Manfrotto 3232 tilthead with large lenses but no bigger than a 300mm 2.8 because the tilthead won't reliably hold the lens in position due to weight and the leverage from a long lens.
For fat glass on a monopod it seems best to avoid a head of any kind unless you take extreme measures (see below). The Manfrotto 3232 tilt head as shown on RRS's page doesn't work very well for anything over a 70/80-200 2.8 lens and I have not found anything else like the 3232 tilthead.
You should be able to use a Manfrotto #3232 tilting head with big glass if you modify the head castings to improve the clamping action of the tilt clamp by adding a second friction surface. My guess is that the tilthead will work well up to the lighter (relatively speaking), EF 500 4L IS once modified this way but I'm hoping to use it with an EF 400 2.8L IS without too much trouble also. You'll also need to drill out the castings so you can use larger aircraft grade hardware to take advanage of the improved clamping. Use aircraft graded hardware to mount the RRS clamp to the tilting head. I'm in the process of doing this myself to avoid switching back and forth between having a tilthead on and off of this monopod when I need longer, fatter glass. The castings look heavy enough for all of this to out work just fine, the question mark in my own mind is the pop-up springloaded 3/8's stud in the top of the monopod. I guess I have been using this setup for a long time and that it should be okay but once I got a good look at this thing I got a bit nervous about it. The new MAnfrotto 3232 head is just sitting in a machine shop waiting for an opening between paying customers. Hey, this stuff costs money and I need to feed the wife and kids! Good work is good, good free work is better IMO.
Cheers/Chip  | 
Linear Mode
