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tripod for long lense
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Looking for some advice on tripods to hold a Nikon 200-400 F4/D300 with battery grip.. will be for shooting wildlife etc. What do people use for such heavy long lenses to keep them from getting camera shake.
Cheers
Johnmost very serious nature guys would use some sort of gimble head
the popular one is the wimberly stuff
guy in out camera club whos is big nature head uses one of these with a gitzo steel tripod
Don’t over look a monopod as when the wildlife is moving it can help give you some motion control.
Sheldon wrote:
Don’t over look a monopod as when the wildlife is moving it can help give you some motion control.
have a nice monopod already.. never go anywhere with out it.
John
Hi John. I use a Giottos MT 8160 carbon tripod (discontinued), but there are newer versions. It is heavy to carry for long distances, but is fairly sturdy. I would prefer if it had spiked feet as this would add to stability on uneven ground. A good feature on it is a hidden hook which is spring loaded in the base of the central colum on which a sandbag could be hung to add weight for extra stability. If your lens has IS, turn it off, as this can add vibration in the shots. If your lens has a tripod collar, this will help the overall balance of the camera/ lens combination and help eliminate the lens from falling forward. A good quality head is essential also to avoid this from happening and the wider the legs can be spread on the tripod, the more stable it will become. The longer the focal lenght of the lens, the more any vibration is likely to be magnified. Hope this helps.
If you can afford NOT shooting animals on the run (ha, ha, neat trick, I know) you can keep your existing tripod and just get a long lens support, (e.g. Manfrotto 359) – Relatively cheap and makes a huge difference with any heavy set-up and even on windy days, but requires having a tripod screw socket under your lens (or come up with a clamp, or such). I’ve tossed the unnecessarily large Super-clamp that came with mine and got a mini-clamp instead in order to save even more weight. Fits basically any tripod.
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