new tripod. (1 Viewer)

I have been researching tripods the last few days, really wanting a quality unit with a geared center column, and found all to be rather pricy. I got lucky today and found a Manfrotto MT057C3-G Carbon Fiber Tripod at EuroOptic.com for $650 US. Most places including eBay show them in the mid $800 range, so did pretty good there. My first tripod I bought in a USAF bx in Izmir Turkey back in 1972 was a rather lightly made, cheap unit, but has served me well. I used it mostly for photography, and with a cable release on my old Pentax Spotmatic made good pictures. I am using a larger spotting scope now and it just does not seem solid enough, It had a geared column and I just got to liking it for ease of elevation adjustment, so now with this one on order it looks like the wait is over. I am planning on either a Manfrotto 500 fluid head or a 405 geared head, possibly both. I will definetly like the geared head when out target shooting, other things i think the fluid head will work fine. I am using a stout dovetail slider that can screw to the quick change plates on the tripod and use my scope on different type tripods or sometimes a clamp on bench stand that i have.

Sounds really good and should be rock solid. Congratulations.

John

I'm hoping it will be solid. I have a 190 and with the column raised it tends to wobble a bit with my Kowa TSN82 scope.

My 57c3-g carbon came in today. This thing is massive compared to the 190g, and feels much more solid. I picked both up at the same time and weight did not seem that different, but i suspect it would feel like much more if I had to carry it very far. In reality it will not be very far from the house or my truck so it could be 2-3 times as heavy and that would not concern me much.