Marco, Changing your tripod to something that's actually stable seems like an excellent idea. The Bogen/Manfrotto products are a pretty decent starting point, although, I'd suggest shying away from their heads. They use a piece of rubber between the quick-release (QR) plate and the camera body and that does not hold the camera steady with longer lenses. For one, the rubber acts like a spring, which is exactly the opposite of what you want. Secondly, if you shoot vertical images, you'll find that the camera/lens presents enough torque on the rubber to cause it to creep. I have a Manfrotto ProBall 308RC collecting dust for exactly that reason. Maybe I'll use it to hold a flash at some point. That's about all it's good for...
The better heads use a system developed by Arca-Swiss. It's a basic dove tail clamp and it provides a metal-metal interface that gives you plenty of clamping force. Furthermore, several companies have developed camera and lens plates that have lips on them to prevent the plate from rotating when you flip the camera into vertical. No springy rubber needed. Acratech, <http://www.acratech.net/>, is an example of this. I have their Ultimate Ballhead which is probably the strongest, lightest Arca-Swiss style ballhead on the market. I'm quite happy with their camera and lens plates as well. Yeah... $300 for a head is bloody hell expensive, but that's life. I used to use a Linhoff Profi II head that I modified by adding an Arca-Swiss style clamp to it. That came out to about $300 as well... Really Right Stuff, <http://www.reallyrightstuff.com/>, is another company that makes decent Arca-Swiss style stuff. Tripods: Go with Gitzo. Yeah... Again... Bloody hell expensive. But worth every penny. I absolutely love my G1227 carbon fiber tripod. It recently replaced the Bogen 3221 (I forget the Manfrotto number for it) I started out with. If you can't justify spending big bucks on a tripod (especially after you just spent $300 on a head for it), the Bogen/Manfrotto 3221 and 3021 are really good tripods for the money. They're not as stable as the aluminum Gitzo tripods of the same size, but they are also only about 1/2-2/3 of the price... Tom
Gonna changhe my "crap" tripod (50€) to something better: manfrotto 055clb tripod triminor classic balck manfrotto 484rc2 ball head mini rapid take off What do you think?
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