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Tripods

Holiday Gift Guide – Best Tripods, Sliders and Gimbals of 2021

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The season of giving is upon us – which becomes immediately obvious whenever you walk into a store and you’re overwhelmed by Whamageddon. If you want to avoid the Christmas music and prefer to do your shopping online, then have no fear, DIYP’s 2021 Holiday Gift Guides are here to rescue you with some of our favourite new releases of the year, as well as a few old favourites that always seem to find a place in our gear bags.

In this post, we’re going to be taking a look at Tripods, Sliders & Gimbals. Keep an eye out for our next guide coming tomorrow covering other photography and filmmaking accessories and gadgets and be sure to check out our previous guide going over the best of this year’s new Cameras, lenses and lighting gear.

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Colorado Tripod Company launches the world’s first titanium tripod & ballhead

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It wasn’t too long ago that we thought carbon fibre was the answer to all of our tripod woes. A material that makes our tripods lighter and stronger at the same time. But according to new startup, the Colorado Tripod Company, that’s not the only material from which tripods can benefit. They’re planning to incorporate titanium, too.

The company is launching a new titanium ballhead and tripod through Kickstarter. There are also aluminium versions of both, along with a slightly unusual style “open” ballhead (the one pictured above). The campaign is already fully funded, and still has 27 days left to go

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Standardize your tripod plates for $15 or less to save time on-set

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I own, maybe 8 tripods. I also have a monopod, couple of sliders and a gimbal. Each of these has heads which take some form of tripod plate. A way to attach your camera to the device.  But the big problem with them is that they all typically tend to use different tripod plates to each other. This means lots of switching out plates on-set as you need to move from one to another.

This number of camera supports might seem excessive, but I am not alone. Many folks out there own a number of tripods, sliders and other units, especially if they shoot video as well as stills. This video from Jordy Vandeput shows us how we can standardise all of our tripods to make swapping out a breeze, saving a lot of time.

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Manfrotto beefs up its travel range with 4 new tripods and 2 ball heads

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It’s the time of year, at least for those of us in the northern hemisphere where the days are long, and we’re starting to get that travel bug. The sun’s well and truly back, and we want to get out exploring with our cameras. To do this, especially if we want to shoot any long exposures or video, we often need a tripod. But they can be big, heavy, cumbersome things.

Well, Manfrotto’s got your back, with four new tripods, three of which are carbon fibre. There’s a new Befree Advanced CF, a Befree Live Twist CF, and two new Befree GT tripods – one aluminium, one carbon fibre. And there are two new ball heads to go with them.

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Zion National Park will allow tripods on some trails after all

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Earlier this month, we reported Zion National Park’s decisions to ban tripods from all trails for photography workshops. This caused reactions and even some confusion among photographers. But, Zion National Park has now responded to their concerns. Some trails will allow tripods for photography workshops after all.

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DIYP Reviews the Manfrotto Element Carbon – Small but mighty

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The Manfrotto Element series of aluminum travel tripods have become quite popular since their initial release.  Now they’ve updated the line with the new Element Carbon. I’ve had one for the last few weeks, so here are some of my thoughts.

I’m not typically one to go for small tripods. Well, with the exception of the Manfrotto Pixi, those things are awesome. But sometimes I need my camera a little higher up. On location, when I need it to clear ground clutter or foliage, the little Pixi just doesn’t always cut it.

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This is why fluid head video tripods are useful for photography

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I switched over to mostly using fluid head video tripods for stills photography about 8 years ago. I still have a couple of Manfrottos with ball heads. I also use ball heads with sliders. But, my go-to is a Libec video tripod with a fluid bowl head. They just make life so much easier, especially on location.

It seems I’m not the only one who prefers to work with video tripods for photography, either. In this video, photographer Hudson Henry talks about why he likes to use fluid heads for photography. The advantages he lists are some of the reasons why I also like to use them. If you’re shooting a lot of video anyway, it definitely makes a lot of sense to make the switch, even for stills.

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How to DIY repair a damaged tripod thread in your camera

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Tripod threads in the bottom of cameras and other devices are usually pretty solid. I’ve got cameras that are decades old that still have perfectly functional ones. But, I’ve also had a couple of adapters and gadgets where they haven’t survived so well. Quality control isn’t what it once was, and the number of devices containing 1/4-20″ sockets has soared compared to only a few years ago. So, failures are far more likely these days.

Repairs like this can be a pain. If you can’t connect your camera to your tripod, slider, gimbal or other support system, you’re screwed. Sending to a service centre for repair can be costly and take a few weeks to get your gear back. Fortunately, filmmaker Tom Antos has put up a video to show us how we can repair our own using a readily available DIY tripod screw repair kit.

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Rant: Tripod makers, please don’t force us to carry coins in our bags

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I am a firm believer in the power of the tripod. Tripods let you do wonderful things. You can easily composite, take long exposures, do light painting, it is just an awesome tool. When it comes to video tripods are even more essential, at least if you want to take a static shot.

But tripods don’t all match. And that would have been ok, only switching from one tripod to another is not as easy as it should be.

Most tripods have a separate head, and that head usually connects to a tripod via something called quick release plate. While there are some standards (RC2 from Manfrotto, Arca Swiss), the need to swap quick plates is not that rare. In fact, I own (and use) 4 tripods (6 if you count Gorilla pods), and almost each and every one of them has a different plate.

And I swap tripods quite a bit. I use one for stills (with an RC2 Rapid Connect compatible head), another for video (with a Manfrotto 501PL Rapid Connect Sliding Plate) and sometimes I just need to mount my DR-70 between the head and the camera.

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