Tripod Info Base

Tripods & Accessories

All serious camera operators understand the importance of a good quality tripod. All professional video work will require a tripod, at some stage, therefore it's important to choose the right tripod for the job. A tripod consists of a head and a set of legs. These are separate components, although most tripods are usually sold as a package made up of the head, legs, a spreader and case.

SELECTING A TRIPOD
In most cases a good tripod will outlive your camera by many years. Most tripod manufacturers make a range of tripods designed for use with different size/weight camcorders so it's important to choose your tripod accordingly. It would be no good buying a tripod designed for a full-size shoulder mounted camcorder such as a Sony XDCAM HD model, to use with a smaller lighter camcorder such as a Sony V1, as it simply won't balance right.

Try not to penny-pinch and compromise too much with your tripod. For many years, professionals and amateurs alike would buy a tripod budgeted at approximately 20% of the value of their camera e.g. if the camera was a Sony Digibeta costing £22,500, they would pay around £4,500 for a tripod. If the camera were a Sony PD170 costing £2,700, they would pay around £450 for a tripod. Don't ask me who invented this rough camera-to-tripod ratio or why people follow it; they just do.

But, it's now time to change this ratio rule, why? Because today's prosumer and semi-professional camcorders such as the Sony Z1, Canon XL H1, JVC GY-HD111E and Panasonic HVX200, produce images so good they are snapping at the heels of many high-end professional broadcast cameras. It's for this reason that you should be spending more on a tripod; because your camcorder is worth it.

TRIPOD COMPONENTS
The tripod is made up of the head, legs and spreader. The head supports the camera and provides the movement. It should be noted here that all tripods heads are not created equal. If you've got the money it's definitely worth investing in a quality, fluid head tripod. The fluid head, as its name implies, provides fluid (smooth) movement during panning and tilting. You'll really appreciate this feature when trying to video subjects when zoomed in close. Tripod legs come in many varieties. The main differences are with their height, weight and general sturdiness. They come in single-stage or two-stage, mid-spreader or floor-spreader, alloy or carbon fibre. Some have a claw ball bowl design that allows the head to be levelled on the tripod legs with the aid of a spirit-levelling bubble.

THE HEAD
The first thing you will need to establish is whether to go for a 75mm or 100mm ball base size head. This will be determined by the size/weight of your camcorder. See under 75mm or 100mm bowl opening legs further down the page. For small to mid-sized camcorders such as the Sony Z1, Panasonic HVX200, Canon XL H2, JVC GY-HD100 etc, you will need a 75mm bowl/ball base head and for larger/heavier full size shoulder mounted camcorders such as a Sony XDCAM HD and DSR450 you will need a 100mm bowl/ball base head.

DRAG CONTROL
Most video tripod heads have drag controls for the pan and tilt. The drag controls allow you to adjust the amount of resistance during a pan or tilt movement. This varies from a very tight/stiff control with lots of resistance to a very loose/free control with virtually no resistance at all. You can set the drag control for the pan and tilt to anywhere in-between these two extremes. There are two types of drag control systems; continuous and step. Continuous means you can set the drag precisely via a dial, you simply turn the dial until the desired amount of drag is reached. Step drag systems work differently. With a step system there will be a number of fixed positions to choose from, this could be 3, 5, 8 etc. Obviously the more step choices you have the better the chances of you being able to choose a drag setting that suits the shooting situation. It's usually better to go for the continuous type as you have much more control over setting up the head. With both continuous and step drag control systems, you can set the drag controls for both pan and tilt separately i.e. you might prefer a tighter setting for the tilt, but a looser setting for the pan, or vice-versa. The more control you have over these head settings, the better. Some of the more expensive heads also have a counter-balance system to help balance your camera perfectly (see balance on next page).

FLUID OR FRICTION?
Tripod heads come in two varieties, fluid or friction. This refers to how the drag controls work i.e. setting the drag controls for the pan and tilt to achieve more or less resistance. The friction based method for controlling drag is the cheaper option and is usually found on budget priced tripods. The friction drag control method works okay, but it is a relatively cheap manufacturing process and is found on tripods that are built to a budget, and it is nowhere near as smooth or effective as a fluid controlled head.

Fluid heads use an internal fluid to create the dampening effect for the pan and tilt controls. Because the manufacturing process for a fluid tripod head is more complex, the heads are more expensive; but there is still a difference between a lower priced fluid head and a more expensive professional fluid head. There is no doubt that a bottom of the range fluid head will work better than a top of the range friction head. However, a cheaper fluid head such as the Manfrotto 503 (£300) will not work as precisely as a more expensive professional model such as a Vinten Vision 6. An out-and-out professional fluid head such as any of Vinten's Vision range (£650 and upwards for head only) or the more expensive Sachtler range (£650 and upwards for head only) are manufactured under stringent condition and are built for professional use; and professionals are a real fussy bunch when it comes to tripod heads. The Vinten and Sachtler range have all the air bubbles vacuumed out of the fluid during the manufacturing stage and the fluid used is of a superior kind and is different from the fluid used in lower priced fluid heads. Unlike the cheaper fluid heads that have irritating characteristics such as creep (where the head creeps back in the fluid a few millimetres at the end of a pan) and dead spots (where there are moments during a pan or tilt that you don't feel the fluid i.e. you hit an air pocket, or a sudden temperature change from indoors to outdoors affects the fluid), the more expensive professional fluid heads don't have any of these niggly characteristics or problems hence they are built for out-and-out professional work where only the very best will do.

QUICK RELEASE OR SLIDING PLATE?
Tripod heads come with two types of release plates, this can take the form of a camera plate fixed to the bottom of the camera that clicks on and off the tripod head, or a sliding plate fixed to the bottom of the camera that slides on and off the tripod head. These are known as the quick release plate and the sliding plate. In reality they are both quick and easy to release from the tripod head. With the quick release type you usually press a safety button in, then pull a release lever. With the sliding plate type you usually loosen a lever half a turn then slide the plate off towards the back of the head whilst pressing in a safety button. There is not much difference in the amount of time it takes to release your camcorder from the head with either of these systems, so if you need to get from a tripod shot to a handheld shot quickly there is not much in it.

A quick-release mechanism is more common on stills photographic tripod heads and video tripod heads designed for much smaller camcorders such as the Sony HVR-A1E or similar size/weight palmcorders. The quick release mechanism is also found on lower priced video tripod heads. This allows you to quickly remove the camera from the tripod, but it leaves no room for balancing the camcorder on the head as you cannot slide it back and forth and lock it into position like a sliding plate.

The sliding plate variety is found on the better and more expensive professional tripods. The sliding plate design assures the camera is mounted to the head in a much more secure manner; it feels sturdier and safer. The sliding plate also allows for a degree of balance as you can slide the plate back and forth within about an 8-centimetre range, then clamp it into place. This means that you can get the camera's centre of gravity directly above the tripod head even if the camcorder is front or back heavy. The sliding plate system allows for finer adjustment, which equates to superior balance and better performance.

PERFECT BALANCE
Some tripod heads have a counterbalance system that prevents the camcorder from slowly tilting backward or forwards when you remove your hand from the pan bar. Tripod manufacturer Vinten call their system Perfect Balance. These special tripod heads have a large spring inside them, which forces the head back to its horizontal position when you take your hand off the pan bar. Once you have your camcorder mounted on the tripod head and have adjusted the tension of the spring via a large external knurled knob (Vinten Vision series except Vision 3), you can then tilt the camcorder up or down into any position, let go of the pan bar, and, as if by magic, the camcorder and tripod head will remain in that position. This feature comes into its own if you have to tilt up or down into a shot, then hold the shot for a few seconds. Trying to hold a shot like this steady with a non-balancing head would be incredibly difficult.

THE LEGS
Obviously the legs must be sturdy enough to hold the weight of the camera and any additional accessories that might be attached. Modern tripod legs are much lighter these days due to the use of alloy tubing or carbon fibre options, and take the form of either a single-stage or two-stage design. Single-stage legs have just one sliding section to the construction and are generally slightly cheaper than two-stage models. The advantage of a single-stage tripod is that they are easier to set up and pack away as there is only one locking section to each leg. However, they don't pack away quite as small as a two-stage tripod, as the leg sections have to be a bit longer.

Two-stage legs have two sliding sections to the construction, which allow the legs to collapse down to a shorter length taking up less room when folded away. The two-stage tripod is also better for lower to the ground shooting angles due to its three shorter leg sections as opposed to the two longer leg sections of a two-stage model. If you shoot corporate videos and weddings and the like and have no need for really low shooting angles and don't mind the overall length being about 7 inches longer when packed away, save yourself some money and go for a single-stage design as they are easier to use. If however you need to shoot from a very low to the ground angle and/or need your tripod to fold up that little bit smaller (perhaps to fit in a small boot of a car) then go for a two-stage tripod.

75mm or 100mm BOWL OPENING LEGS?
The Bowl is the circular concave opening at the top of the legs that the head fits into. The standard bowl sizes (openings) are 75mm and 100mm. Although bowl sizes come in larger sizes than this i.e. 150mm, they are for much larger cameras i.e. 35mm film. The 75mm and 100mm bowl designs cover cameras from small hand held models right up to full size professional shoulder mounted models. The larger 100mm bowl allows for a larger head to be fitted, which will accommodate full size shoulder mount cameras such as Sony Digibeta, XDCAM and HDCAM models. The larger 100mm bowl does a better job of supporting larger camcorders due to its larger diameter opening. However, a 100mm bowl is not necessary for smaller or mid-sized camcorders. For smaller/medium size camcorders such as the Sony Z1, Panasonic HVX200, Canon XL H1 and JVC GY-HD111 a 75mm bowl tripod will be perfect. If you buy a set of tripod legs with a 75mm bowl opening you will need to buy a tripod head with a ball base size of 75mm. If you buy a set of tripod legs with a 100mm bowl opening you will need to buy a tripod head with a ball base size of 100mm.

Tripod legs bowl opening and head ball base size compatibility chart.
75mm bowl/ball base size is suitable for small to mid size/weight camcorders such as: Sony HVR-Z1E, HVR-V1E, DSR-250 Panasonic HVX200, DVX100 JVC GY-HD111E, GY- DV5000E Canon XLH1, XL2 and similar size/weight camcorders. 100mm bowl/ball base size is suitable for larger full size shoulder camcorders such as: Sony DSR450, DVW-970P, PDW-530P, F350 XDCAM HD Panasonic AJ-SDX900, AG-HDX400 and similar size/weight camcorders.

ALLOY OR CARBON?
What are the advantages/disadvantages with alloy and carbon tripod legs? Alloy legs are more durable, can be repaired if the tube gets bent, drop more easily after deploying legs, and they are cheaper to buy. Carbon legs, on the other hand, weigh less, don't corrode in salt water, it's a sexier material, and it's much stiffer. However, carbon legs are more expensive than alloy ones.

THE SPREADER
The spreader is a brace that is fitted between the three legs of the tripod. There are two types of tripod spreader, the floor-spreader and the mid-level spreader. The mid-level spreader is positioned halfway up the tripod legs. This allows the bottom section of the legs to be adjusted on uneven ground. This configuration is recommended for outdoor use or for use when shooting on uneven round or where space is not available and one or more legs have to be set to different lengths to compensate. The floor-spreader is ideal when shooting on flat surfaces, such as indoors or in a studio environment. In conjunction with the two-stage tripod leg design the floor-spreader will allow the tripod to go down to really low level shooting angles.

DOLLIES & TRACKS
If you have ever tried to track a subject while walking, you'll have noticed the unavoidable camcorder shake that this entails. It's pretty unavoidable and for this reason most professionals use a tracking system or dolly when they shoot objects that are moving. A dolly is a wheeled cart on which the camcorder and tripod is mounted, the dolly is then pushed along as you film. When using a wheeled dolly directly on the ground i.e. not on tracks, the surface has to be smooth for obvious reasons. Big film studios mount the dolly on a track system and employ an extra person to push/pull it; these people are called grips. These high-end professional tracking systems can cost thousands of pounds but there are many cheaper options available from companies such as ABC and B-Hague.

It's possible to improvise a cheap DIY dolly using such items as a shopping trolley or better still, a wheelchair, the latter was used by Robert Rodriguez during the making of his low-budget film El Mariachi.

A very effective dolly shot is to move backwards as actors move towards you, capturing the look on their faces as they move through the scene. You would also need a dolly for pulling off the contra zoom (or Spielberg shot). This is where you start on a wide shot, then as you dolly in you simultaneously zoom out. This creates a distorted perspective on the background, as the subject remains perfectly framed.

LANC CONTROLLERS
The Lanc, or sometimes referred to as the Lens controller, is a device that is fitted to the tripod's pan handle. A cable then goes from the lanc controller and plugs into the camcorder (or lens, in the case of shoulder mounted professional cameras). This allows you to operate various features on the camcorder, but directly from the lanc controller that is conveniently mounted on the tripod's pan handle. These features include start/stop record, zoom in/out with adjustable zoom speeds, ret (for viewing last 5 seconds recorded and/or parking on last frame of tape after changing tapes). It is much easier and more convenient to operate such features directly from the tripod's pan handle as your hand it already on it, it saves reaching around the camera and fumbling for the zoom and start/stop controls. Lanc controllers are available for most prosumer/semi-professional camcorders and broadcast 1/2 inch and 2/3rd inch lenses. Lanc manufacturers include Manfrotto, Libec, Varizoom, BeBob and of course Canon and Fujinon.

SETTING UP YOUR TRIPOD
Unpack your tripod and unclip the leg restraints/restraint. These can take the form of a clip on each leg or a single string that stops the legs from opening out during transit. Open out the legs and spreader slightly then undo all the leg locks, then lift the tripod by the head to the required height and allow the legs to drop, then retighten the leg locks. Adjust the floor or mid-level spreader so the legs are wide enough to safely prevent the camera/tripod from toppling over.

Undo the bowl-locking knob positioned underneath the head and in-between the legs, this will allow you to level the head using the spirit-levelling bubble. Once the head is level, lock-off the bowl. Now adjust the angle of the pan bar so it is in a comfortable operating position; 45° downwards is a good starting point. Now lock both the pan and tilt locking knobs while you mount the camcorder onto the tripod.

Fix the sliding plate (or quick release plate) to the base of the camera as close to the camcorder's centre of gravity as you can, then tighten it up.

Now place the camera on the tripod. Make sure the drag control for tilt is set to minimum (off with no drag resistance whatsoever), then while holding the pan bar, loosen the tilt-locking lever off altogether and slide the camcorder back/forth along the head of the tripod (note: quick release plate designs can't do this) until the camera sits perfectly horizontal without falling forward or backward; this is known as finding the camera's centre of gravity. Be sure to hover your hand over the pan handle in case the head/camcorder falls back/forth. Once the camcorder is balanced in the dead centre of the head, lock off the sliding plate to prevent further movement. Adjust the pan and tilt drag tensions to your desired settings, experimenting with different levels of drag. In general, use lighter drag tension for close or fast-moving subjects. Use heavier drag tension for slow moves, longer zooms, or if you're having difficulty keeping the shot steady.

Remember to use the pan and tilt locks to lock the tripod off when you are not using the camera otherwise there could be a danger of the camera falling (tilting) forward or backward into one of the tripod legs; especially if you are using a tripod that doesn't have a perfect balance system like those found on the Vinten Vision range or higher end Sachtler and Libec models.

TRIPOD MANUFACTURERS
Vinten (made in England) - www.vinten.co.uk
Sachtler (made in Germany) - www.sachtler.co.uk
Libec (made in Japan) - www.libec.co.uk
Miller (made in Australia) - www.millertripods.com
Cartoni (made in Italy) - www.cartoni.com
Manfrotto (made in Italy) - www.manfrotto.com

Tripods suitable for smaller prosumer/semi-professional camcorders
i.e. Sony HVR-Z1E & HVR-V1E, Canon XH G1 & XH A1, Panasonic HVX200.

Vinten Vision 3 system with number 2 spring - from £995 inc VAT
Vinten Pro 5 - (budget series tripod, up to 6 kg capacity) £345 inc VAT
Vinten Pro 6 - (budget series tripod, up to 6 kg capacity) £465 inc VAT
Manfrotto 503/525 kit - (budget series tripod, up to 6 kg capacity) £345 inc VAT
Sachtler DV4 system (only 1 step balance) - from £950 inc VAT
Sachtler DV6 system (multi step balance) - from £1250 inc VAT
Cartoni Focus - from £799 inc VAT
Miller DS10 systems - from £850 inc VAT
Libec LS38 system (suitable for cameras up to 4kg) - from £399 inc VAT
Libec TH-950DV (suitable for cameras up to 4kg) - from £199 inc VAT
Libec LS-22DV (suitable for cameras up to 4kg) - from £269 inc VAT

Tripods suitable for smaller shoulder-mount semi-professional camcorders
i.e. JVC-GY-HD111E, Canon XL H1

Vinten Vision 3 with number 2 spring (fixed balance system) - from £970 inc VAT
Vinten Vision 6 - (continuous balance system) from £1,595 inc VAT
Vinten Pro 10 - (budget series tripod, up to 10 kg capacity) £699 inc VAT
Manfrotto 503/525 kit - (budget series tripod, up to 6 kg capacity) £345 inc VAT
Sachtler DV6 system (multi step balance) - from £1250 inc VAT
Cartoni Focus (continuous balance system) - from £795 inc VAT
Miller DS10 or DS20 systems - from £850 inc VAT
Libec LS38 (suitable for cameras 4 to 8kg) - £399 inc VAT

Tripods suitable for shoulder-mount ENG type camcorders
i.e. Sony DSR450, Panasonic AG-SDC615, AJ-D400, JVC GY-DV5100E

Vinten Pro 10 - (budget series tripod, up to 10 kg capacity) £699 inc VAT
Vinten Vision 6 (continuous balance system) - from £1550 inc VAT
Vinten Vision 8 (continuous balance system) - from £2,150 inc VAT
Miller DS25 system - from £2,100 inc VAT
Libec LS-55 (suitable for cameras 6 to 8kg) - from £599 inc VAT

Tripods suitable for full-on broadcast-professional camcorders
i.e. Sony Digibeta, XDCAM HD & HDCAM, Panasonic DVCPRO50 & AJ-D910, JVC D9, Thomson Viper HD

Vinten Vision 8 (continuous balance system) - from £2,150 inc VAT
Vinten Vision 11 (continuous balance system) - from £2,595 inc VAT
Vinten Vision 100 (continuous balance system) - from £3,435 inc VAT
Libec LS-70 (suitable for cameras 5 to 14kg) - from £1149 inc VAT
Libec H85Z (suitable for cameras 5 to 17kg) - from £2049 inc VAT
Miller DS60 system - from £4,250 inc VAT

©2006 Nigel Cooper