What tripod do you use and aren't many identical?

Jack Dale wrote:

The seller didn't even mention a ballhead at all, but that second pic looked like there is one, with the legs folded over the head. Baibian's website also mentioned a ballhead coming with this BD-284 tripod, an MD-28, so I bought it.

Here it is:

The Baibian website: http://www.baibian.tw/

The Baibian BD-284 tripod, pictured here the carbon version: http://www.baibian.tw/BD-Series.html

The BD-28 ballhead: http://www.baibian.tw/Ballhead-md28.html

Baibian's nicest looking ballhead, the 45A: http://www.baibian.tw/Ballhead-45A.html

I wish I knew who imports/sells Baibian products here in Europe, and under what brand name!

Liewenberger

With the button release and the lack of safety screw grooves, that looks like a Sirui style ballhead. They are not fully compatible with Arca Swiss plates. I could not fit a Sirui tilt head clamp to the vertical plate on my L bracket.

Yes, the Sirui heads indeed look very much like this one. The only difference seem to be these stupid black rubber rings on the knobs of most of the Sirui heads; I could imagine it feels nice, but I don't think these rings will live forever.

Not fully compatible with Arca Swiss, you're probably correct, but I've never done any tests. So far  I have used this head exactly once, with the plate that came with it, on last New Year's Eve. Thought about shooting some fireworks from the veranda, looking down to a little village in the valley. Had nicely set up the Rollei tripod with this Baibian head and my old E-5 with the RM-CB1 cable release, but then around 10 p.m. the valley filled up with fog and that was it.

The lack of safety screw grooves - yes; though I think this has changed now with newer models. I bought this one in late 2017 or early 2018. The seller said it came from some photoshop gone bancrupt, so around the time I've bought it, it was probably not the latest model of this head.

Liewenberger

One of the extra benefits of M43 is the lightness of everything. Most "quality" tripods aren't actually "quality". Instead they are built  robust enough to support, say, a Nikon with a 600mm telephoto, or in other words about four M43 cameras with equivalent lenses.

With smaller, lighter M43s much less expensive tripods are completely adequate at a fraction of the premium-brand price tags. At my photo store, which featured tripods up to AUD$600, I found a AUD$59 one that works perfectly for bird photography.

I also found the 1KG Joby Gorillapod completely adequate: my Olympus PenF and 150-300 zoom come to just over 820gm. This model costs way less than the "suggested" 3kg model.

setiwan47 wrote:

One of the extra benefits of M43 is the lightness of everything. Most "quality" tripods aren't actually "quality". Instead they are built robust enough to support, say, a Nikon with a 600mm telephoto, or in other words about four M43 cameras with equivalent lenses.

When using telephoto lenses, torsional rigidity is the factor to look for in the tripod. The weight of the camera is not the problem for the tripod, it is the narrow angle of view that makes small movements so prominent in the picture. I would put the same demands for a tripod for a M43 with 300mm as to a Nikon FX with 600mm. I have never seen a tripod that has enough torsional rigidity for the narrow angle of view, but is not robust enough for the weight of a Nikon FX with 600mm.

The head is another matter. A more lightweigth camera does not make the same demand on the head. But still, narrow angles of view set demands on the operation of the head. Small ball heads are not up to the task, because small balls makes it very hard to do small adjustments. Bigger balls makes it a lot easier, and bigger balls also handle the heavier cameras. If using video heads or gimbal heads, the real benefit of more light weight cameras will occur.

I try very hard to avoid using one at all, ever.

If I have to, it's a Gitzo Ocean Traveller (the orginal first series version) with a Series 1 ballhead replacing the original (useless) one.

I am thinking of replacing it with a Series 2 traveller though.