excellent advice, Walt.
I went to the ByThom site and read his great article--the second time I've read it, but certainly not too often. I think the first time I was sent to it from the Really Right Stuff site, when I was looking into buying a support system I could afford. (I ended up buying Giotto legs, an Acratech Gv2 head, and an RRS L-plate for my A700. Acratech doesn't make a plate for the A700. I don't have a lens heavier than my cz 85 f1.4 so this works pretty well.) Thanks for redirecting me to this article.
I have the RRS L plate but hate the way it bulks up the camera. So most of the time I use a Markins PS-90 which is a bottom plate for the a700 or a900 Very compact and out of the way and provides a proper anchor point for the wrist strap.
Note Acratech does make a universal L plate. Intended to be used with a plate on the camera like my Markins setup. I've been tempted to get one of those to put on when I need a L plate.
L plates need depends on what you shoot. Obviously of no need if shooting tele with their own feet and rotation. And if verticals are not a lot of your shooting ballheads can be shifted for vertical.
I decided quite a long time ago that trying to make a single tripod fit all my uses was a joke. So I've several. I've for the past couple years been working on deciding on and replacing those with lighter carbon fiber tripods each of which is selected for a different range of jobs. For my lightweight one right now I have the most recent Manfrotto 055 CF 4 section with Acratech Ultimate and Long Lens heads interchangably used on it. I'm still debating if I got the right legs there or if I should have gone Gitzo. But it did pretty well as a light hiking tripod on my west trip last spring.
Right now it's the heaviest duty of the set I'm assembling, primarily a long lens setup. Gitzo GT5541LS legs, with Wimberley II head to replace my 3021BPro with the original Wimberley head. The new head is a whole two lbs lighter than the original and 2" less height but a little improved over the original. That setup can certainly handle my current long lenses, and will handle anything we are likely to see out of Sony in the future in long lenses. At least anything I could afford.
Following that I can see there will be at least one more tripod. One that's less compromised to save weight compared to my hiking setup but not the beast that the long lens one is. I'm kind of looking at the GT3541XLS there as that one would also give me a extra tall tripod for some projects I'm into. Takes a couple lbs off the bigger legs. Could handle the long lenses I've got now with a little care.
Something Thom said, though, confused me. I couldn't tell whether he was advising for or against using weight to improve stability. I see you recommend placing a bean bag on the camera. Is it not advisable to hang weight from the center post?
There are various schools of thought on that. The weight from the center post can sometimes just pendalum on it's hanger so some are against it. The energy coming down the tripod from the mirror/shutter just passes right by, and wind shakes also are not subdued and may get worse. there are also weight platforms that attach to all three legs to get around the swinging that are probably better. Weight on the camera itself more directly couples to the energy coming from the mirror to dampen it but you cannot put a lot of weight there. Really you have to experiment with your setup and do a bunch of shooting to find out which is best for your setup under different conditions. It's not a one size fits all. Probably ideally that weight is the tripod itself, but then you have to cart it. I believe Thom leans towards the tripod itself having the right amount of weight rather than weighting a too light tripod. Only place I consider weighting is for the light hiking tripod.
The beanbag suggestion was for ways to experiment with lack of MLU. To get by that. It should not be needed if your tripod is good and sized properly and you have MLU.
The only thing to realize about Thom is he shoots certain types of photography and he's recommending based on his shooting. Mostly landscape I think as he mentions a 70-200 being his long lens. For macro his general advice is good but a straight simple up and down tripod will likely not be the best choice even though it's the best for vibration. In general his recommendations will work ok with smaller lenses, but he kind of glosses over long tele shooting. Wimberley, he's right, but the legs he's putting under it are a bit on the light side.
Walt
