I when to watch Harry Potter, The Order of the Phoenix yesterday at GSC, One Utama. I had bought the tickets a few days earlier. I could only get the morning show at 11:45AM. I rather watch in the morning then the evening, finding parking after lunch on a weekend at 1U can be really stressful.





The movie was okay, I've forgotten the background of most of the characters already. Since I didn't read the book series and the damn movies comes out only once a year, I hardly ever keep in touch with the Harry Potter world. Who the heck is Sirius Black already? I remember seeing a Mad Eye Moody but what was his role in the previous movie? I just realize how insignificant this Harry Potter movie series is... none of it when into long term memory.





Anyway, after the movie, Chui Yan wanted to do some window shopping. I when to check out tripods. I walked into my favourite camera shop. I was debating on whether to spend RM1,000 to get a good tripod or get a cheapo one. The reason being, even after heavy use, the head of the good tripod will wear out just as same as the cheapo ones.





In my office, we have some pretty expensive Manfrotto tripods and they all have some pretty crummy tripod heads now. They all have shaky pans and tilts. My current tripod was a cheapo one too and the only reason I'm getting a new one is because one of the foot broke of. I can still use it but it's an inch shorter on one leg. Plus, I can't use it for any pan or tilt shots either. The head has worn out... no more oil I think.





Anyway, this is what I got...

The Slik U 8000 model. Sounds like a cool ultra hi-tech name doesn't it? Actually I was quite surprised by the smoothness of the 3 way head. It pans and til really smoothly. This I tested on the display model. Normally the display model would have been heavily abused already but the shop owner says so far of all the tripod he sells, this one is pretty good.

It doesn't have any water levels so I can't really tell if the camera is balanced unless I have a horizon in my camera viewfinder to look at. Then again, the water horizon on my old tripod didn't work very well either. The quickshoe requires a coin to screw it into the camera. In my old tripod, there was a latch I could just use my fingers to turn and release the shoe. Now I have carry a 20 cent coin everywhere.

It's made in China for a Japanese company. Since China was having all this food safety manufacturing problems at first I was quite cautious. However, it's just a cheapo aluminium tripod so what the heck... I paid RM200 for it.

I hope this one last me for at a year!