Cartoni Focus Tripod Review

T627 standard legs: ?171.00
T627/C carbon legs: ?291.00
Focus head: ?403.00
Focus Single Stage System (head, pan-handle, standard legs, mid-level spreader, rubber feet): ?680.00
Focus Single Stage Carbon System (head, pan-handle carbon legs, mid-level spreader, rubber feet): ?800.00
Focus Double-Stage standard leg system: ?781.00
Focus Double-Stage carbon leg system: ?1,216

INTRO
For those of you who are not familiar with the Cartoni brand here?s a quick history lesson. Cartoni are a small family-run business in Italy and have been building professional quality tripods for high-end film cameras for many years. The new Focus head is one of the latest additions to their range and it has been designed for the smaller semi-professional cameras such as the Panasonic HVX200, JVC GY-HD100, Canon XLH1, Sony Z1 etc, overall it can hold cameras weighing up to 10 kg.

Cartoni are better established in the USA and Italy than they are here in the UK. Here we tend to use Vinten, Sachtler, Libec, Miller and Manfrotto. So when I first heard about Cartoni?s new Focus head and the fact that it could allegedly balance cameras weighing between 1 and 10 kg absolutely perfectly using a continuous balance system as opposed to a step-balance system, well I got quite excited to say the least. After all, there is no other tripod out there that has that kind of range of balance; nothing even comes close. So the Focus (if it does what they say it does) should be perfectly capable of balancing everything from a Sony Z1 right up to a shoulder-mounted DSR450.

What else does the Focus have? It has a fluid head with continuous fluid drag controls for both pan and tilt, a continuous balance system by way of a large dial (not too dissimilar to the Vinten Vision range) from 1 to 10 kg, a built in illuminated spirit bubble, all built around a sturdy 100mm bowl design. Oh, and all for ?750. Sound too good to be true? Read on and I?ll explain my findings after using the tripod for a few days.

IN USE
Firstly, the Focus head comes with standard single-stage 3-tube legs or single-stage carbon fibre legs. I decided I wanted to try both sets of legs out so I picked up the Focus head, standard metal legs and carbon legs from the new UK importer PAG, who were kind enough to loan me the kit for a few days.

THE LEGS
When I first unpacked the head and legs I was immediately impressed with the carbon fibre legs. These legs are very sturdy and well built. They have a mid-level spreader that works like a dream, and the quick-release leg locks are fast and easy to operate, the latter also have a clever built-in safety switch to ensure that the legs stay locked in any given position. The standard non-carbon legs use the same leg clamping system, but the tubes are a different design. Unlike the carbon legs that have two tubes for the top stage and another two tubes for the bottom stage, the cheaper legs only have a single tube for the bottom stage.

There is nothing wrong with this system; many other tripod makers use this method. However, Cartoni haven?t quite managed to get it right. The hole that the bottom single tube section goes though does not appear to be a snug enough fit, so the bottom stage wobbles in the top stage section slightly. This proved to be a major flaw in the design, especially when carrying out a ?whip-pan? shot. I found that when I tried a slow panning shot there was a very noticeable amount of tripod leg ?wind up?, which was exaggerated by the loose-fitting sections, and when I got to the end of my pan the legs slipped back a few millimetres. This doesn?t sound much, but if you are zoomed in when panning, this flaw is magnified and becomes glaringly obvious. The better Cartoni carbon ENG legs (pictured above) do not suffer this same flaw, so to anyone entertaining buying one, I would have to urge you to opt for the better carbon legs. Erecting and folding the legs away is quick and easy. Once collapsed down the three legs are held together via two strong rubber strips, which hook over a protruding notch on the adjacent legs. Both sets of legs come with neat flat rubber feet that are built around a small ball-and-socket design so the feet remain perfectly flat on the ground, even on very uneven surfaces. The feet can be quickly unscrewed to reveal a standard spike, this also allows you to fit an optional floor spreader if you prefer. Overall I was quite impressed with the carbon legs considering they only cost ?291.00, for the money they are brilliant; you simply won?t find better carbon legs with a professional 100mm bowl sitting at the top anywhere else at this price.

THE HEAD
At first glance the Focus head looks really impressive, all the levers and dials are in the right place, it is heavy, and appears to be very well built. However, on closer inspection and after spending a few days using it in the field with a Panasonic HVX200 and a JVC GY-HD101E, I soon learned that there were many design faults in this head that render it totally unusable for any serious professional applications (see The not so good bits).

THE GOOD BITS
The brochure boasts that this head will balance any camera from 1 to 10 kg and after putting the head to the test with a light camera (Panasonic HVX200) and a heavier camera (JVC GY-HD101E fully loaded with a long heavy Nikon lens, matte box rig and a massive Hawk-Woods battery pack), it appeared that the brochure was totally accurate. An unladen (no add-on accessories whatsoever) HVX200 is about as light as you could go with this head. With the Panasonic, the balance dial on the head was barely dialled in, in other words it was set to the thin end of its weight scale, still the Panny was perfectly balanced. I would imagine the Focus head could not go any less in weight than a Sony Z1. At the other end of the scale the very heavily laden JVC GY-HD101 complete with Nikon lens and Hawk-Woods battery pack weighed in at around 7 kg. I found that the Focus head balanced this rig perfectly too. The balancing system of the head is not too dissimilar to the type found on the Vinten Vision range, in fact it looks identical. I didn?t go as far as opening up the head so I don?t know if Cartoni are using a similar balance mechanism to Vinten. This system allows you to dial in the amount of tension on the spring, which ensures perfect accuracy when balancing the tripod; this is a superior system to the 2, 4, 6, or 8 step balance systems found on some other maker?s heads, which is frankly a little hit and miss to say the least, as your camcorder has to fall exactly within the ranges of these steps and if it doesn?t, you won?t achieve perfect balance. So, the Focus head can balance small light cameras right up to heavier shoulder mounted cameras like the Sony DSR450 and because it uses a 100mm bowl it can handle the larger cams too.

I would say this head is particularly suited to smaller sized cameras such as the Sony Z1, Panasonic HVX200, Canon XLH1 and JVC GY-HD100.

The fluid movements of the head feel about as good as any Vinten or Sachtler that I have used, panning and tilting feels very slick and smooth and the dial in drag controls for pan and tilt work very well allowing you to control precisely the amount of drag. However, I did find that a very firm grip and some effort was required to unwind the pan drag control after it had been set to a maximum position. The mid-level spreader works like a dream, it has three easy-to-grip adjusters that allow you to spread the legs to different widths, either individually or together. I found the minimum width spreader setting gave enough spread for good overall balance of the tripod and it was more than enough to stop the tripod from possibly toppling over if it took a knock. In the centre of the spreader is a metal ring, which you simply lift when folding the tripod away; a quick lift of this ring brings all the legs in together, folding the tripod away in one fast and single movement. However, I would have liked to see a ruler guide engraved along the top of the metal spreader so you can be sure that each leg is spread exactly the same as the next. Without a ruler guide you have to use your eyes and hazard a guess, which is a bit hit and miss, and it also means you will almost certainly have to level the bowl using the built in spirit level, even when on a perfectly level floor.

THE NOT SO GOOD BITS
The Focus head/tripod kit could have potentially been the ultimate sub ?800 tripod in the world. The carbon legs are excellent and the Focus head has everything in all the right places with nice fluid movement and a huge balance range from 1 to 10 kg, but there are some major let-downs with the head, some of which will affect the images, some that won?t, but will simply prove annoying during use.

First things first, the spirit level bubble has a button that can be pressed to turn on the light, making levelling the head easy in dim lighting conditions. This makes it easy to level the head via the large adjuster under the head, between the legs. However, the button is nothing more than a small plastic sticker with ?Power On? written on it. On my review sample (which was brand new and boxed), the sticker was not bang in the middle so when I went to press it with my thumb it did not turn the light on. Only after closer inspection did I see that it was way off centre. So I peeled it off and re-stuck it where it should have been to start with. While it was off, I noticed underneath there is simply a flat pressed wire. I couldn?t help feeling that in time, this sticker will fall off and be lost in the field somewhere forever. If this happens the light switch won?t work anymore and a replacement battery holder would be required; my guess is that this would have to come from the Cartoni factory in Italy.

The next thing I noticed was the pan and tilt ?lock off? levers, which proved to be a bit ineffective. I found that a relatively good push of the thumb was not enough to really lock the head off. I could still move the head with moderate force on the pan-bar. You really need to push these two levers quite hard (which hurt my thumb with the tilt lever due to its shape) for them to be effective, and even then, a strong pull or push on the pan-bar proves that the head still slips against the locking system.

The next niggle was with the pan-bar, which can be mounted on the left or right side of the head. I found the diameter was not quite thick enough. Overall the pan-bar is a little too thin and delicate; I would have much preferred to see something more ?manly? like those found on the Vinten Vision range. The Focus pan-bar just doesn?t seem to have enough to get hold of. The pan-bar is of the telescopic variety and can be extended from its minimum of 30cm to a maximum of around 48cm. I was disappointed not to see a ?maximum line? drawn on the pan bar to warn you not to pull it out any further, also there is no stop point so it?s all too easy to pull the handle totally off when extending it. I did this several times, and a ?stop line? would have prevented this. Finally, the pan-handle has a bad design flaw in that the thicker handle grip part is not a snug enough fit to the thinner head end of the handle, so when it is extended slightly, there is slight movement, even when the telescopic lever is tightened up. Once the handle is extended 3 or 4 inches and you have set the drag quite high, the handle clicks from side to side within its own tube, which makes an annoying clicking noise as well as adding unwanted movements at the beginning of panning shots, potentially ruining delicate establishing pan shots. Overall, the pan-handle feels flimsy, it bends too easily and is unusable; a very big letdown.

Next we come to the tripod plate. I totally hate it, the design is bordering on plain ridiculous. I would have loved to have seen an industry standard sliding plate here, one with a lever for tightening up the plate after it has been slid into your desired position and with a safety lock catch to prevent the plate from sliding out when the locking lever is loose. The Focus head uses what looks like a sliding plate, but the plate does not actually slide, instead it pops out to the side, similar to a quick-release system, only sideways. The plate has a safety lever that has to be moved out of the way before the main lever can be pulled out. This prevents you from inadvertently knocking the lever and having your camcorder pop out of the head and onto the floor. Although this is secure enough, it is simply impractical for the working cameraman. I simply cannot see why Cartoni have designed a great head that balances to perfection, then they counteract the whole design by using a non-sliding plate. Any cameraman who is used to setting up a tripod and balancing it, knows only too well that the sliding plate design goes a long way in aiding this process as it allows you to make miniscule adjustments by sliding the plate a few millimetres either way to get that balance perfect. Sometimes you need to slide the plate back or forth an inch or so to get the camera?s central point of gravity directly over the centre of the head. Although you can slide the plate back and forth with the Focus head, you have to unlock its quick release mechanism first, which brings your camcorder slightly off the head at a sideways angle. Then you have to try and hold the camcorder in this strange position (otherwise it will fall to the ground) whilst trying to slide it back and forth, then finally you have to push the camcorder downward to get the plate to click down into position. For me this proved very clumsy indeed and I did not like the slight jolt it sends through the camcorder when you click it back down into place. My Panasonic HVX200 feels flimsy enough on its own and doesn?t need any extra stress that the Focus head could cause it over time.

Finally I carried out my standard panning shot test. For this test I simply wind up the pan drag control about 70% of the way toward its strongest setting to aid in achieving a smooth pan with no jerky movements (very much needed with today?s smaller/lighter HDV cams). I then zoom the camera right in and onto a subject that has defined vertical lines in the scene, for this I used a high brick garage wall about 50 yards from my house. Once zoomed right in with the correct exposure and focus, I carry out a gentle pan to the right, then I aim to stop the pan with the horizontal edge of the garage wall lined up with the left hand edge of the picture safety zone line on the flip-out LCD screen of the camera. The Focus head suffers from what I call ?drift back?, meaning when I get to the end of a pan and gently stop, as I take my hand from the pan bar and the head settles in the fluid, it drifts back a few millimetres. This does not sound like much, but when zoomed in on the garage wall near my house, this equates to about half a brick in the wall, which is glaringly obvious to professionals with a critical eye. I even slackened off the drag control so there was virtually no drag whatsoever, but still this ?drift back? problem was there, though not as bad as when the pan drag control is cranked up. The Focus head is not the only head out there with this flaw, the Manfrotto 503 and 519 heads suffer from this too, only a lot worse. The Vinten Vision range and high-end Sachtler ENG tripods on the other hand do not suffer with this problem at all, but they do cost more.

SUMMING UP
For me, the Focus head needs to go back to the drawing board and have these flaws fixed; and quick. For now, the head simply cannot be used for any serious professional applications that require delicate pans, such as establishing shots or Dutch pans. I was very disappointed with the Focus head as I was really hoping that this could have been the tripod I have been waiting for. Maybe next year Cartoni or another tripod manufacturer will bring out a tripod that balances cameras from 1 to 10 kg, does not suffer from the dreaded panning ?drift back? effect or leg ?wind up? problems and costs under ?1000. If and when they do, they will be onto a real winner for sure.

ONE OF THE BEST COMPANIES TO DEAL WITH
Although I did not rate this particular model from Cartoni, I rate the Cartoni company as by far one of the best companies on the planet to deal with; if not ?THE? best. I cannot really recommend the Focus tripod that highly, but I can unreservedly recommend the Cartoni family and company; they are simply superb.

I took the liberty of emailing the Cartoni headquarters in Rome, Italy, a copy of my review so they had my personal customer feedback. To my amazement, I received the most polite and diplomatic response I could have ever wished for.

I half expected an email telling me I was wrong, slagging me off, telling me I?m a crap journalist/reviewer etc. But no, Elisabetta Cartoni herself emailed me back thanking me for my opinions and feedback. She explained that they were aware of some of the issues that I pointed out and were in the middle of fixing them, she also told me that she would investigate my other findings and try and resolve them on the production line. She also invited me to look at a future sample of the Focus tripod once these changes have been implemented; which I look forward to doing.

In the meantime, I can?t recommend the Cartoni company enough. I can guarantee that if you buy any model of Cartoni tripod, you will receive the best after-sales service ever.

Because of this super attitude, I?ll certainly be looking upon Cartoni tripods a lot more favorably with future reviews.

Cartoni are now my number 1 favorite company to deal with in the video production industry.

UK Importer PAG: www.paguk.com

?2007 Nigel Cooper