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Better than a gimbal ?

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sting

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I've been using the Wimberley sidekick for longer lenses (300mm and 400mm f/2.8) and have been looking at something steadier. Does a product exist that would cradle the lens at both ends or two points rather than accept a single foot mounting foot ?

Here are two examples used for telescopes :
http://www.memphisastro.org/Mounts.html
 
I think there are two different issues here... one the attachment method of the lens to the plate, and the other, the gimbal.

You might be looking for something like this:

https://www.isarfoto.com/cms.php/_pid:23645,l:500,pp:1,ps:az,st:burzynski%20nikkor/de/0/Produkt.html

But I didn't see anything for the lenses you listed. Take another look.

If you don't like the "touchiness" and critical balance you need to maintain for the Sidekick, maybe you would prefer the Full Wimberly head? I've been thinking about upgrading myself.

--
Regards,
Neil
 
Thanks, but that product is for adding gimbal abilities to a monopod and doesn't offer any additional lens stabilization.

This "Manfrotto #359 Long Lens Camera Support " brace appears to offer additional stability at the expense of camera head rotation. I've never tried it, and perhaps it is less constraining than the photo suggests and the review states. It appears that the arm increases the stability only after you lock it down. This is definitely better than nothing.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/accessories/359.shtml
 
NRothschild said:
I think there are two different issues here... one the attachment
method of the lens to the plate, and the other, the gimbal.

You might be looking for something like this:

https://www.isarfoto.com/cms.php/_pid:23645,l:500,pp:1,ps:az,st:burzynski%20nikkor/de/0/Produkt.html
Click to expand...
Awesome! That's pretty darn close to what I'd imagined. I'd like a stabilzer for my 300mm f/2.8 and 400mm f/2.8 .
NRothschild said:
If you don't like the "touchiness" and critical balance you need to
maintain for the Sidekick, maybe you would prefer the Full Wimberly
head? I've been thinking about upgrading myself.
Click to expand...
Even with the support product I'm looking for, I may just go for the full Wimberley head. Though, I'm not convinced the full Wimberely will give me care-free lens stabilization. I have been putting in the effort to stabilize a long lens, but I'd rather spend more time concentrating on focusing/framing the subject. Also, I hate the soft shots due to my long lens technique. I think that the additional stabilization I'm looking for will exceed my manual efforts.
 
GaySatyr said:
Something like this?



See: http://www.reallyrightstuff.com/mpr/index.html#
Click to expand...
Hey , that's getting hot and will probably do the job. It's not exactly what I imagined, but an additional advantage is that it includes a general purpose sliding rail, which will help tremendously when I mount my Nikon super tele lenses on my Sony Z1 (with Red Rock Micro Converter).

Thank you very much.
 
That contraption is $500, which is pretty pricey for a two point suspension. The advantage for you, though, is that it could be adapted to any long lens and you have two lenses. Plus you have all the parts for other pursuits, like a macro rail.

I linked to Burzynski above, but I don't think he has devices for your two lenses, and even if he did, a pair would run $400 or so anyway.

Then you could add on a flash bracket and test the mettle of even the largest ballheads :-)

See my comment above about the Wimberly (in a couple minutes).

--
Regards,
Neil
 
If you add a two point suspension, especially that RRS setup in the post below, you really want to think about a full Wimberly.

I have used a sidekick for a couple of years, with a 300 2.8 AFS II and 500 F/4P. I recently played with a full Wimberly in the field and there are definitely a couple of major differences.

1) The full Wimberly has a horizontal mounting plate so you don't have to do that dance to get a lens mounted with the foot sideways; you know what I mean :-). It is much easier to mount a large lens, especially your 400.

2) The full Wimberly is like a swing, with an adjustable platform. The one I played with was probably not adjusted correctly and the lens had a defiinite tendency to seek a level attitude because the clamp platform was too low. I think as you raise the platform, that tendency to level decreases as the center of gravity is raised to the level of the gimbal pivot. Does that make sense?

The result of that is that big lenses feel more stable on the full Wimberly and you can dial in, I guess, the center of gravity. The balance is not nearly as critical as on the Sidekick, but that would depend on how you position that clamp platform. Very tweakable.

I'm sure you have had occasional issues with the Sidekick that cause the load to go out of balance. For example, removing a flash from the hot shoe and forgetting to lock down the gimbal. This is all mostly "insurance" to protect the gear and make it less sensitive to balance.

The full Wimberly "feels" more stable, yet Wimberly claims the Sidekick is actually more stable or vinration resistant, from what I can gather from their FAQ page, which is worth a read and explains the differences better than I can.

I'm thinking about upgrading myself, or maybe even keep the Sidekick because I would like to be able to run two lenses at once, in my case I would have a long 500mm MF and a shorter AF ready to roll at the same time. I have two bodies, two legsets, all I need is another gimbal.

--
Regards,
Neil
 
Thanks for all of the fine advice, Neil. The full Wimberly head's horizontal mounting makes more sense, but the Sidekick's mounting isn't that uncomfortable or difficult. The balancing of the lens can be a horrifying experience as it's quite easy to open up the mounting clamp too much to allow the plate of a heavy lens to slide through. Another Sidekick horror could be a ball head that hasn't been locked down completely. The Sidekick could then be a longer torque arm when holding an soon-to-be-balanced lens.

Yeah, as you write, we'd still like to keep the Sidekick for lighter lenses. They're so much more convenient to adjust when models (be they people or dogs) walk towards you as well as providing more consistent leveling.
NRothschild said:
roll at the same time. I have two bodies, two legsets, all I need
is another gimbal.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I'm thinking of putting the full Wimberly on my sturdier video tripod. I was sucked into getting a 1325 for my original uses, and when the 300mm and 400mm primes + TCs came into play, a light tripod was exactly what I didn't want.
 
It seems to me that the Dietmar Nill head is much like a telescope fork mount. Lock it down on stable legs (like the Gitzo 5-series or the Sachtler models) and it is probably somewhat more stable than the Wimberley -- it all depends on implementation and balance. I've only seen the thing in pictures.

However, adding the Kennan Ward dual support bar assembly to the lens/camera makes it a rigid unit and then mounting that in the two-point DN gimbal seems like it might provide as much stability as possible on a rotating system.

Of course, you could always add an additional locking "V" bar from the camera plate to two of the tripod legs. This would essentially make the tripod head / lens / camera / legs into a sort of tetrahedron -- one of the most stable constructs there is.
But g-d help you if you need to adjust framing....
 
sting said:
I've been using the Wimberley sidekick for longer lenses (300mm and
400mm f/2.8) and have been looking at something steadier. Does a
product exist that would cradle the lens at both ends or two points
rather than accept a single foot mounting foot ?

Here are two examples used for telescopes :
http://www.memphisastro.org/Mounts.html
Click to expand...
Gimbal heads are not designed to be steady. They are designed to allow smooth movement in any direction. And the sidekick is only designed to allow steady movement on smaller lens/camera combinations. It isn't designed to be used with a 400 F2.8.

You would find a ball head steadier than using a sidekick. And you will also find that a full Wimberley head is steadier than a sidekick since it was designed for the additional weight of a large lens.

RRS has pieces to allow you to mount a bar to both the foot of the lens and to the camera body. This will reduce motion between the lens and the body but I doubt it would be any steadier unless you mounted it to two tripods.

Speaking of tripods, I'd wonder how steady your existing tripod is. Would you care to tell us what type you are using?

--
Tony

http://www.pbase.com/a5m/ http://AnthonyMedici.naturescapes.net/
 
One of the things I like about my sidekick is that when I want to pack up and move to a new location (wildlife shooting) I just pull it out of the clamp. At my next location, I'm pre-balanced. I don't throw my gear over my shoulder when I walk to a new location because I don't think it is good for the ballhead. So... same deal. Easy off and easy on. Not sure if I would throw a full Wimberly over my shoulder- I guess I would talk to them to see what they think about possible damage to the horizontal pan. I want to keep that factory fresh and smooth.

That was another thing I liked about the full Wimberly - the horizontal pan. Very nice and a nice big knob that made it easy to tweak the tension. I use a Markins M10 and now an M20. My M10 has a little play in the horizontal pan when it is fully loose, and it doesn't tension quite as well as I would like in order to use it to shoot without locking but with a firm base. And, of course, with a gimbal the nature of the work is that you are shooting fast and there's no time to lock it down.

My new M20 is better in that regard and I am told even the newer M10's have a better pan base. I have not yet done any real world shooting with the M20 and Sidekick. It actually may work out very well and even make me happy and I'm very picky about this.

My recollection, though, was that the Wimberly pan base was very nice and was very easy to tension into a "sweet spot", unlike my M10, where I can't get enough drag that I felt it was fully stable, and pan easily at the same time. Markins recommends locking the pan before shooting- it is different than the ball, which they recommend to shoot without locking it down. Just another minor point if my memory regarding the Wimberly pan base is accurate.

In spite of the above, I have never actually had issues with my M10/Sidekick that actually lead me to believe the pan base caused me to get unsharp images. It's all been a mental thing, to some extent. And, of course, in low light things have to slow down anyway and I lock the pan base for a critical slow shutter speed shot. The whole idea of obsessing about stability while you are wildly gyrating a gimbal mount is a very fuzzy concept :-) :-)
sting said:
Yeah, I'm thinking of putting the full Wimberly on my sturdier
video tripod. I was sucked into getting a 1325 for my original
uses, and when the 300mm and 400mm primes + TCs came into play, a
light tripod was exactly what I didn't want.
Click to expand...
That raised an eyebrow over this keyboard. I have never heard any negative comments about the 1325 and I know people I respect that shoot it with 600 F/4's, for example. I'd like to hear more of your thoughts on that because...

I have a G1228 and a G1410. Opposite ends of the universe. In some ways it is an ideal setup- one super-portable set of legs and one super-sturdy set of legs, although quite heavy at 8.5 LB without the head. Not fun for any kind of hike. It's great working at the side of the road, though.

Sometimes I regret not getting a 1227 but the 1228 works so well with small lenses for landscape work, and even on my 300 F2.8 in a pinch when I need to hike it and that lens somewhere, plus a backpack.

For awhile, I shot the 300 2.8 exclusively on the 1228 before getting the 1410. Somwhere along the way, my images have improved with that lens and I don't know what exactly to attribute it all to, because the sum total of the results is getting a lot of little things right. Maybe my technique is improving... who knows? I can shoot test charts but that doesn't tell me what happens in the wild and wooly real world.

So... I've been thinking about a 3 series leg set, either to replace the 1410 or to supplement it when I need to do some hiking to a shooting spot. I've even thought about the large Feisol legs because they are 37mm diameter legs- actually the same size as my 1410- the 4 series CF Gitzo that Gitzo never made. OTOH, I don't want to go backwards in any way. Plus, in my own mind, I've never come to an opinion as to the stability of aluminum verses CF and never had a comparable pair to even attempt a test.

Given all the above, I'm curious why you didn't like the 1325 and what "video legs" you are using.

Have you considered that any instabilities you see are related to the lens foot and not the legs? I know my 500P has a lousy collar and I played with a Canon 400 2.8 that bobbed like a cork in water, but I am pretty sure it is the nature of the beast., and not the 1325 legs it was sitting on.

--
Regards,
Neil
 
GaySatyr said:
But g-d help you if you need to adjust framing....
Click to expand...
Well, consider that the reason you use a gimbal to begin with is that you are tracking moving subjects. Otherwise you would just use a ball head.

I'll also point out that I found that dual lens configuration very interesting on that German dual arm gimbal. Until I studied the image and realized it can't be pointed very far from level without the lower body encroaching on the mount. Nothing is perfect, I guess.

As I mentioned in a post above, the experience I have with my 500 F/4P and some testing with a 400 2.8 is that they are inherently very unstable. You tap the end of the tube and it just bobs like a cork for many seconds. It's one of the reasons my 300 2.8 gets most of my long lens time. It is a nice compromise and works well at 500 F/4.8 with a TC17. If I had $8-10K tied up in a lens like that, I'd probably throw a bit of money at the problem. I suspect that the RRS 2 point suspension, if it really can quiet down those lenses, would solve 98% of the problem and the two point gimbal the other 2%. But that is just speculation, of course.

I think it would be better, in some cases, to put the suspension point at the end odf the lens, not the body, depending on where the collar sits. On my 500P the collar is back towards the body end. On a 400 2.8, it is close to the front element. In a case like my lens, it would be nice to fit some sort of cradle on the RRS rail. Or maybe an option to do both, which would work well on my lens when a TC is installed, which is most of the time it gets used.

--
Regards,
Neil
 
Anthony Medici said:
Gimbal heads are not designed to be steady. They are designed to
allow smooth movement in any direction. And the sidekick is only
designed to allow steady movement on smaller lens/camera
combinations. It isn't designed to be used with a 400 F2.8.

You would find a ball head steadier than using a sidekick. And you
will also find that a full Wimberley head is steadier than a
sidekick since it was designed for the additional weight of a large
lens.
Click to expand...
I don't agree with that, and I don't think Wimberly does either, based on their "Which Gimbal" FAQ.

http://www.tripodhead.com/faqs-wimberley-vs-sidekick.cfm

They state that the Sidekick is easily able to handle large lenses like the 400. However, it requires critical balancing when the lens is mounted and the mounting procedure can be a little scary. But once it is mounted the Sidekick is very stable. Wimberly even claims in their FAQ that the Sidekick is lightly more stable than the Full Wimberly, but they don't elaborate on the reasons why. I suspect it is because the Sidekick's pivot mechanism is very well engineered and it is just a simpler mechanical arrangement. But at the expense of requiring a little more skill and daring, and maybe physical dexterity in the set up.

From the closing paragraph of Wimberly's FAQ:

"There is no loss of stiffness or stability with the Sidekick as compared to the Wimberley Head. The Sidekick coupled with a good ball head is actually stiffer than the Wimberley Head, although this makes no practical difference since both heads are generally much stiffer than the tripods that support them."

--
Regards,
Neil
 
In the post above, I said I did not agree with you... the specific points I disagree with are....
NRothschild said:
...And the sidekick is only
designed to allow steady movement on smaller lens/camera
combinations. It isn't designed to be used with a 400 F2.8.

... And you will also find that a full Wimberley head is steadier than a
sidekick since it was designed for the additional weight of a large
lens.
Click to expand...
As far as steadiness compared to a ballhead, I did not address that and I have no firm opinion on that, even after spending two years with a Sidekick, except to say that the more I use it, the more confidence I have in it. If I shoot slow shutter speeds, I lock it down and use good LLT or MLU and I get good results. If I am setting up for low light work, I don't use the Sidekick, but OTOH when the light fails I rarely bother to remove it. That's as non-committal as I can get :-)

--
Regards,
Neil
 
NRothschild said:
They state that the Sidekick is easily able to handle large lenses
like the 400. However, it requires critical balancing when the
lens is mounted and the mounting procedure can be a little scary.
Click to expand...
A little scary? Like trying to put a up to 20 lbs of equipment costing over $20,000 onto a small clamp while standing in the elements? I'm sorry but mounting large equipment onto a side mounted unit is something I'd rather avoid. I've had enough problems with dropping equipment.
NRothschild said:
But once it is mounted the Sidekick is very stable. Wimberly even
claims in their FAQ that the Sidekick is lightly more stable than
the Full Wimberly, but they don't elaborate on the reasons why.
Click to expand...
Because there isn't an additional 6" of metal that can be used as a lever to create additional torque. But again, the purpose of a gimbal head is not to be stable, it is to provide for smooth movement. If I want stable, I'd reduce the setup to a tripod and a panning head from RRS. That's stable since there is very little that can move.
NRothschild said:
From the closing paragraph of Wimberly's FAQ:

"There is no loss of stiffness or stability with the Sidekick as
compared to the Wimberley Head. The Sidekick coupled with a good
ball head is actually stiffer than the Wimberley Head, although
this makes no practical difference since both heads are generally
much stiffer than the tripods that support them."
Click to expand...
And the thing left unsaid is that the point of having these heads is to allow free movement. I don't want stiff with a gimbal head, I was freedom of motion so I can follow subjects in motion. And the full Wimberley head is simply easier to setup and breakdown compared to using a big lens on a side kick. Besides that using a sidekick very much depends on the ball head for stability and with the wrong head, it has problems locking down to the point where you can force it to move when it is supposed to be locked tight.

I'm assuming that you have a very good ball head that you use with the sidekick since that was the part that I would have a problem with when I went to put the rig over my shoulder to carry it.

--
Tony

http://www.pbase.com/a5m/ http://AnthonyMedici.naturescapes.net/
 
Tony,

I don't disagree with anything you just said. There are some very important ergonomic issues but that is very subjective and related to the actual gear. A balancing of subtle and not so subtle greater and lesser evils. Personally, I find it annoying to mount my 500P but not scary. That's my take. If I had a 400 or 600 it might be different. I also suspect that on any given day I could do something stupid with any configuration and destroy my gear. I once caught my 300 2.8 in mid-air on the way down because I was in a hurry and cross threaded the plate. I don't need a gimbal to do something stupid :-)

My only point was that once it is mounted and as long as I don't do anything stupid, the Sidekick will take just as good an image as the full Wimberly and it is probably just as effortless in it's tracking. I could even argue that it performs better because I am forced to balance it perfectly and I can point it at a bird in a tree, for example, and let go and it won't budge as long as I did my job balancing it.

Stability....

Personally, I want it all. I want my gimbal to track effortlessly, but I also want to be able to lock it down and have a stable shooting platform when the light fails. I go through that on every good shooting day because the shooting can go on well into dusk. With a Sidekick, I certainly don't want to be flipping back and forth every time I shoot into shade. Doing a switch at dusk is not bad, thoiugh. With a full Wimberly, well, that is one evil of that configuration- it isn't so easy to switch to a ballhead unless I have another tripod set up and ready to go.

Regarding the ballhead- I've used a Markins M10 for over two years. I have never had that head slip when it was locked down -ever, under any circumstances - and I never have to crank it hard to lock it down.

The Markins M10 is rated for 90 LB and I'm sure you know that that number has generated tremendous controversy. The fact is that the payload rating is a measurement of the holding power of the ballhead when the ball is locked. Although not directly applicable to normal use of the head- no one would ever put a 90 LB payload on the head and expect it to pan smoothly in a sweet spot - that rating has everything to do with how well it handles a Sidekick because in that configuration the only thing that matters is holding power. I highly recommend that head, simply because it is cheaper than other high tier heads and performs. I recently bought an M20 because I needed a 2nd head. That will perform even better, I guess, and doesn't cost much more than the M10.

What head have you had difficulty with?

Regards,
Neil
 
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