And you thought your tripod head was expensive!

[kipper]

Used for pano photography. Probably has other uses aswell (you'd hope).

http://www.adorama.com/AWC1.html


Ooops must of chopped off the L when adding the url tags.

[Sheetshooter]

Darryl,

The link fails to work for me.

Without seeing the cost of this platform might I add that I don't have a single tripod that cost less than a D70 body.

It never fails to amuse me when I see folk out shooting with maga-bucks glass and using a shimble-shanks tripod. The best lens is made immeasurably better with rigid support.

Cheers,

[huynhie]

I think he means this


it looks like a space age Rubiks cube.

[DaveB]

Try this link:
http://www.adorama.com/AWC1.html

This is the C1 geared tripod head from Arca-Swiss. US$1500, before you add any legs to it...

One thing that caught my eye was:

The camera is fastened with the new, patented ARCA-SWISS Flip-lock® quick release system which guarantees secure displacements or quick exchanges of the units by way of two functions.

It seems they're catching up to RRS's lever release system...

[birddog114]

Yes, I've seen it before not long ago and it's on my list but not priority.
Very nice and precisely unit, can't pass it!

[kipper]

Sheetshooter, this tripod head costs more than my D70

I agree about people buying cheap tripods. I tried to use my oldmans tripod at first. He thought I was nuts buying a G1325 because we already had a tripod.

[Sheetshooter]

Thanks Darryl,

That looks to be the duck's guts. I am tempted to order one as we speak. Currently I use the manfrotto 405 head (and two 410's for special things like ground-plates) and while they are good I know that the precision and smoothness of the Arca-Swiss machining would make life all that much easier.

My only concern is ANY variation of that dovetail style of quick-plate system irrespective of who it is made by and whether it screws or clamps.

One of the most dreadful sounds I have ever heard was on Australia Day 2001. I was using that Arca/Foba/RRS dovetail system on all my gear at the time and had done for years. I took the tripod and set it up and put my Linhof Technika 2000 on top and, using the optical viewfinder, I tilted up steeply for my proposed shot. I went back to the boot of the car to get a lens and heard this clanking thud. I looked around to see the camera on the ground, many of its cast metal component shattered. Seven grands worth of precision light-tight box - smashed and useless. I shall never ever use those adapters again without Aralditing them in. What had happened was that it was a hot day and I had the car air-conditioned like a freezer. I placed the camera and quick-plate into the clamp and tightened it. The ambient heat caused the cold metal to heat and expand sufficiently to loosen the clamping of it all and it just slipped out on the polished metal surfaces. Needless to say there were no pictures that day.

Cheers,

[huynhie]

Are you thinking about buying one Kipper?

Or was this something that you stumbled upon?

[Sheetshooter]

I have just re-read the fine print and this is only geared on two axes and not three which seems pretty stupid. I'll be sticking to the Manfrotto I think.

My tripods are all fitted with ball-leveling heads which can be set precisely enough for makin' movies in Hollywood but if what you were looking for was a precise way of getting a perfectly level surface to retain level for panoramas then there is the much cheaper Manfrotto Gimbal mount. In a rare move for Manfrotto this is not made of cast aluminium ally like most manfrotto gear but machined circular aluminium billet with brass set-screws.

Thanks for the link anyway, Kipper. It was an intriguing exercise.

[DaveB]

My only concern is ANY variation of that dovetail style of quick-plate system irrespective of who it is made by and whether it screws or clamps.
[...]
Seven grands worth of precision light-tight box - smashed and useless.
[...]
The ambient heat caused the cold metal to heat and expand sufficiently to loosen the clamping of it all and it just slipped out on the polished metal surfaces.

A painful story indeed!
It's worth noting that good mounting plates these days have stop-screws on each end of the plate. They screw up into the ends to stop the plate sliding out. You can choose to put them in one end (allowing you to slide the plate in from the other end without opening the clamp fully) or both ends (requiring you to "top-load" the clamp).
RRS started off with a single screw into the right-hand side of their camera plates (to avoid accidents with portrait-mounted cameras), then Wimberley implemented the current system (which several years later RRS seems to have copied).

Clamps these days tend to have slots to allow the stop screw to move towards the middle slightly so your flexibility isn't impaired. Mind you, some plates don't have the stop screws, and you should consider this carefully when selecting the right plate for your equipment (especially for big telephotos)!

The C1 looks interesting, but at 994g it would have to be something I'd get a fair bit of use out of before I was going to carry it into the field. It will still require rail plates (e.g. RRS MPR) to get the entrance pupil of the lens properly positioned (at least for horizontal panos: for verticals I don't see how it could be done with this design).
For me the RRS PCL system combined with a ballhead seems to be a much more manageable system.
But maybe when Birddog eventually gets one he can show us how it's better.

[DaveB]

I have just re-read the fine print and this is only geared on two axes and not three which seems pretty stupid. I'll be sticking to the Manfrotto I think.

I guess that for horizontal panos (which to me seems the main application of this head) they figure you usually don't need to have "micrometric" [their adjective] movement. At least there's fine control over the tilt and yaw axes. BTW, one of my first thoughts when I saw the C1 was imagining trying to use it after you drop it in bulldust...

[kipper]

huhynie, nah not thinking about getting one just stumbled across it while reading a thread on NSN. I'd go for the RRS PCL system if anything although Manfrotto have an interesting pano setup too.

[Sheetshooter]

Dave B,

I am sorry if I sound to contradict - my true aim is to help but ....

It is not the entrance pupil that you need to position but the FRONT NODAL POINT of the lens. Depending upon the formulation of the optical system that may actually be a point well in front of the physical lens - or behind it, as the case may be. I recently assited a friend setting up a Seitz Roundshot panoramic camera where all the movements are computer controlled. It was several day's work determining the precise position of the Nodal points. (The camera, incidentally, tales 120 or 220 film and costs over $20,000.00.)

Not that I am trying to flog Manfrotto this morning but they do make a system of geared (worm drive) plates to precisely set the camera position also.

On a similar point, I have been looking into the RRS macro stage for if I select the 24mm TS-E lens for a canon. Using lateral shift I would mount the camera side-ways and displace the camera by the same number of millimetres as I displace the lens but in the opposite direction. This ensures a fixed position for the lens and is essentially like shifting the rear standard of my view cameras. That way there is no issue with the relationship of foreground objects to the background.

Cheers,

[DaveB]

It is not the entrance pupil that you need to position but the FRONT NODAL POINT of the lens.

I don't pretend to be an expert on this, but I have been told exactly the reverse by a few people recently. With all these conflicting reports you may well be right. At the moment I have to take a 50% bet on one of them being right (I'll have to do some reading so I *know* which is right). But the bottom line here is we both know what we're aiming for, and if you're just doing visual calibration (given that the details for a zoom will change as the lens is manipulated!) to get it close, it doesn't matter.
But yes I'm a pedant too, and hate it when the wrong term is used. Time for me to do some more homework I guess.

On a similar point, I have been looking into the RRS macro stage for if I select the 24mm TS-E lens for a canon. Using lateral shift I would mount the camera side-ways and displace the camera by the same number of millimetres as I displace the lens but in the opposite direction. This ensures a fixed position for the lens and is essentially like shifting the rear standard of my view cameras. That way there is no issue with the relationship of foreground objects to the background.

Yup. See http://www.outbackphoto.com/workflow/wf_58/essay.html. Personally I don't think I'm going to spring for the cost of the macro rail and when I use a TSE it's usually done using the 2nd solution on that page: simply sliding the camera long the A-S clamp a few mm.