no frills, no thrills tripod

[Vicareyus]

You know that thrill of taking a great photo. Well, tonight I didnt have it!

And as a result, I also understand why people are so fussy about tripods.

The scene...Perfect night from my balcony in Glebe of the Centrepoint tower half in, half out of clouds. Fading light...great! Get out my el-cheapo tripo... Now do you think that el-cheapo no-frills tripod (could have been purchased from Franklins) provides any stability whatsoever? Not a bit! Camera is visibly dancing around whilst the shutter is open! I didnt even bother trying to attach the 70-300 lens which is what I wanted to do - no point. So, you can imagine what the images are like!!

So, supposing you had a good tripod that actually did what a good tripod should do - a few questions:

1. What tripod would you have that was still able to be walked around with without a tribe of sherpas following (ie model)?
2. Would you use self-timer to set off the shutter, your finger or a remote (that I've seen referred to in other posts).

Thanks

Vic

[birddog114]

the answer is:
- Gitzo 1027 or 1028 or 1325 overkill with D70 and kit lens, sorry I'm Gitzo fan. Manfrotto is allright. Try to save your buck and get the carbon fibre, it's light.
http://www.gitzo.com/
- Release cable or remote

[Deano]

Vic

My current tripod is a Velbon 640 El Carmagne which is a carbon fibre model. It is light enough to hike with and yet stable. I schlepped it around some headlands last weekend to take the rock climbing shots in my pbase galleries.

See it here: http://www.adorama.com/VNC640.html

Mine didn't have a head on it so I got a manftrotto 484/RC2 (with quick release) which suits it and the D70 just fine.

I got it here in Hongkers for $1800 which is about $310 OZ. Perhaps another item for your secret shopping list.

Cheers
Dean

[Deano]

Oh and the shutter release question.

I have the remote but for a few quick shots the timer is as good. I have it set to 2 secs. Only problem is that you have the set timer mode for each shot which I regularly forget to do. One of the beauties of digital - delete the shot and take another.

Cheers
Dean