manual_exposure
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Hello all!
I'm new to this forum, this is my first post. I mainly signed up to search for a suitable tripod for our Swarovski ATX 85. Until now my partner and I have been using our scope with just a Peak Design travel tripod, set up with a Sirui VA-5, that predates our purchase of the scope and was originally meant for landscape photography while hiking. This was "fine" if a bit undersized but on a recent trip to High Island, Texas, during spring migration I felt it was holding the scope back quite a bit in the medium to strong winds we had there.
I started looking for a better option on this forum and found recommendations for the Gitzo GT2545T Traveller, as well as the LS-324C from Leofoto. Checking the Leofoto website I saw they have a more recent version of this tripod that might be interesting, which they call "Mr. O" or LO-324C. The gimmick on the LO-324C is that it has a center column suspended on a halfball with 15º of movement, so you can put it down on uneven ground and level it off by adjusting the angle on the center column, rather than fiddling around with the three legs individually. I thought both options looked potentially good but couldn't decide which to pick, so thanks to the generous return policy of B&H I ordered both. Since I hadn't seen anything about the LO tripods on this forum I thought I'd report back my findings.
Of course the most important aspect of a tripod is the stability. No matter how much easier a gimmick can make your life, it doesn't help if it ends up making the tripod much less stable. I know about thecentercolumn.com, which objectively reviews the stiffness & damping of many tripods, but unfortunately neither of these exact tripod models is on the website. I tried them side by side but then figured it'd be better to take a video through my camera. To simulate winds I set up my fan that I use for working out at home and pointed it at the tripods. According to its data sheet it generates wind speeds "up to 30mph" which should make for a good test. I also set up both the Peak Design tripod and my full-sized photo tripod (ProMediaGear TR344L) as a reference next to the other two. All tripods were using the Gitzo GHF2W fluid head for this test, except for the Peak Design which was using the built-in ballhead. All in all I took about a minute of video each, and then cut out just a 5s clip from the middle to remove any influence of button presses on the camera. You can judge for yourself here:
Gitzo:
View attachment gitzo_small.mp4
Leofoto:
View attachment leofoto_small.mp4
Peak Design:
View attachment pd_small.mp4
PMG:
View attachment pmg_small.mp4
Rather than just eyeballing it I figured I could do one better. I'm a software engineer by trade, so I wrote up a program that calculates the total amount of camera shake in each video. This should give a more objective measure and hopefully remove any internal biases I might have towards either option. The output is simply the sum of the distance of all frame-to-frame movements in each video, giving a "score" to each tripod where a lower score means a more stable tripod. Here's that output:
PMG: 400
Gitzo: 631
Leofoto: 652
PD: 1068
It's great that my reference tripods match up where they are supposed to go, since that probably means I got the calculations right. Success! The difference between the Gitzo and Leofoto is only about 3%, which is probably within the margin of error for this relatively unscientific experiment.
Ultimately I'll leave which one to keep up to my partner, since she is the one carrying our scope and tripod. The Gitzo has thinner legs and folds up a bit shorter than the Leofoto if reverse folded - but with a larger diameter. If folded in the conventional way it folds up to about the same length but with a smaller diameter. Certainly adds some flexibility when packing the tripod to go on a trip. It also weighs about 300g less than the Leofoto. Not much of a difference on paper, but can make a difference over long periods of time. So really size and weight is probably what it is going to come down to.
I'm new to this forum, this is my first post. I mainly signed up to search for a suitable tripod for our Swarovski ATX 85. Until now my partner and I have been using our scope with just a Peak Design travel tripod, set up with a Sirui VA-5, that predates our purchase of the scope and was originally meant for landscape photography while hiking. This was "fine" if a bit undersized but on a recent trip to High Island, Texas, during spring migration I felt it was holding the scope back quite a bit in the medium to strong winds we had there.
I started looking for a better option on this forum and found recommendations for the Gitzo GT2545T Traveller, as well as the LS-324C from Leofoto. Checking the Leofoto website I saw they have a more recent version of this tripod that might be interesting, which they call "Mr. O" or LO-324C. The gimmick on the LO-324C is that it has a center column suspended on a halfball with 15º of movement, so you can put it down on uneven ground and level it off by adjusting the angle on the center column, rather than fiddling around with the three legs individually. I thought both options looked potentially good but couldn't decide which to pick, so thanks to the generous return policy of B&H I ordered both. Since I hadn't seen anything about the LO tripods on this forum I thought I'd report back my findings.
Of course the most important aspect of a tripod is the stability. No matter how much easier a gimmick can make your life, it doesn't help if it ends up making the tripod much less stable. I know about thecentercolumn.com, which objectively reviews the stiffness & damping of many tripods, but unfortunately neither of these exact tripod models is on the website. I tried them side by side but then figured it'd be better to take a video through my camera. To simulate winds I set up my fan that I use for working out at home and pointed it at the tripods. According to its data sheet it generates wind speeds "up to 30mph" which should make for a good test. I also set up both the Peak Design tripod and my full-sized photo tripod (ProMediaGear TR344L) as a reference next to the other two. All tripods were using the Gitzo GHF2W fluid head for this test, except for the Peak Design which was using the built-in ballhead. All in all I took about a minute of video each, and then cut out just a 5s clip from the middle to remove any influence of button presses on the camera. You can judge for yourself here:
Gitzo:
View attachment gitzo_small.mp4
Leofoto:
View attachment leofoto_small.mp4
Peak Design:
View attachment pd_small.mp4
PMG:
View attachment pmg_small.mp4
Rather than just eyeballing it I figured I could do one better. I'm a software engineer by trade, so I wrote up a program that calculates the total amount of camera shake in each video. This should give a more objective measure and hopefully remove any internal biases I might have towards either option. The output is simply the sum of the distance of all frame-to-frame movements in each video, giving a "score" to each tripod where a lower score means a more stable tripod. Here's that output:
PMG: 400
Gitzo: 631
Leofoto: 652
PD: 1068
It's great that my reference tripods match up where they are supposed to go, since that probably means I got the calculations right. Success! The difference between the Gitzo and Leofoto is only about 3%, which is probably within the margin of error for this relatively unscientific experiment.
Ultimately I'll leave which one to keep up to my partner, since she is the one carrying our scope and tripod. The Gitzo has thinner legs and folds up a bit shorter than the Leofoto if reverse folded - but with a larger diameter. If folded in the conventional way it folds up to about the same length but with a smaller diameter. Certainly adds some flexibility when packing the tripod to go on a trip. It also weighs about 300g less than the Leofoto. Not much of a difference on paper, but can make a difference over long periods of time. So really size and weight is probably what it is going to come down to.