Tripod

Today, was the big day. I finally bought my tripod! I when down to Engtong Systems with Azlan and Fadli during lunch break today to buy the tripod I had ordered. Engtong is small shop in SS2 same row as lobsterman. They're a Manfrotto distributor. I heard about them from my cameraman Ali.

If you haven't heard of Manfrotto before, they're a famous Italian brand of tripods. They're like the Ferrari's of tripod. More expensive than the chinese and japanese imitations but it's worth it.

I had ordered a basic head and tripod. They're two seperate things actually. It came with a free vinyl bag.


I was so excited when I brought them home. I laid it out on my bed to assemble it. Excuse the bedsheet... I don't know what my maid was thinking when she changed my sheets.


The 701RC2 is the most basic video head setup available. It's also the most popular video head model according to the sales guy at Engtong. The tripod was a funky looking 055XPROB. It's also the basic tripod leg that can support the weight I required for my camera.


First, I took out the tripod head. The pan handle wasn't attached to it so I had to attached that first.


Initially, I wanted to attached the pan handle on the left so I can use it with my left hand. I'm actually right handed but my zoom control on my camera is also on my right so I wanted to control the zoom with my right hand and pan with my left hand. Apparently, I can only fit in the pan handle one way and I have to use it with my right hand. I tried squeezing it but I didn't want to break it.


Next was the tripod leg. It's the typical telescope leg setup I've seen other cameraman's use. The leg was really sturdy. They even offer a 2 year warranty plus another 3 years if you sign up on-line in their website which I did!


The black cap on the top has to be removed before attaching the head to it. The water level looks a little dodgy. It looks like it can break of easily if I accidentally bump into it. When the top part of the tripod is not screwed tight, the top part is loose and the water level is hanging loose.





It's just a matter of screwing the head onto the body.


To make sure the head doesn't unscrew by accident, there's 3 screw pins at the bottom that you have to tighten to make sure it doesn't fly of while you're shooting.


This is the most funky feature of the tripod. I don't have the right tripod head to use this feature fully. I need a bowl head to use this feature so that the camera can be tilted up vertically. With my current video head, it'll just be shooting horizontally if I put the tripod in this position. I guess it's great for still photo cameras.


So this is what my camera looks like on it. Very fluid pan and tilt shots. I love it! Only one feature missing, pedestal movements. I can't pedestal up and down like I can with my cheapo tripod. The cheapo tripods have a crank which lets me pedestal the camera up and down. Useful when you want to move the camera from under a table to above the table.


The tripod legs open up all the way until it's flat on the floor. Useful when I need to take low angle shots. I like shooting interviews with low angle.


The first thing I did was to lable my name on the tripod!

The tripod comes with a simple carry bag. Not like the padded Manfrotto bag they show in brochure. I wrapped the tripod head in the bubble wrap that came with the box just to protect it from bumps.

Engtong is like a toy shop for people who love camera accessories. Me, Fadli and Azlan had a good time exploring their shop looking at all their stuff. One of the fun things we saw was a body harness to hold the camera.


Azlan here demonstrates how it is used. Useful for long interviews, instead of holding your camera it can now be hands free! No more shaky shots in an interview.


It comes with a clip you wear around your body so the hardness doesn't slip of. It's only about RM200-300. Not a bad deal. Another fun thing we saw from Manfrotto was the Fig Rig. It's a hand held round mound for cameras. It looks like a steering wheel mount to be handheld for cameras. It's hard to explain.

I'm gonna see if my office can get some of these so we can play with it!