Approaching The Scene 012: A Lightweight, Affordable Fluid Head System

so I'm here in one of my absolute favorite places on the planet on the Columbia River near White Salmon Washington and I'm having fun with my kids and kind of playing around with this brand new little toy a lot of people in my workshops that talked about wanting a little bit lighter weight fluid head you know not carrying quite as heavy a system and I get a lot of emails from people looking for a little bit more affordable fluid head solution and so I've I've got this little Benro system I've been recommending to people and it's working pretty great I'm really enjoying it so I'm going to talk about the merits of some different tripods in this video and offer some new solutions for people wanting into the fluid head for less money and a much lighter weight this whole system fluid head leveling adapter and legs weighs less than 5 pounds and costs 350 bucks this is approaching the scene I'm Hudson Henry I'm a Portland Oregon photographer and this video series is a conversation about photography all things photographic and filmic any visual storytelling so time-lapse video photography and I'm putting them out every Thursday I really wanted to be a series of conversations about photography about creating better images editing better images in the studio and I'd love for you to join the conversation you can send me a question two questions at Hudson Henry comm you can also log on to the website at www.tanahoy.com beer from cheaper to more expensive and really showcase this cool lightweight little unit which I can see myself taking on ski mountaineering trips and places where weight really matters all right so back here in the studio Wow taking a look at that footage from the White Salmon sandbar I see I really really need to clean the sensor on my little a 6500 that I was using to record that field section so I think if you hang in next approaching the scene I'm probably going to do a little short video on simple sensor cleaning especially important for mirrorless cameras so sorry about all the sensor dust in that intro part I'll get that fixed for the next one so you know here in the studio I'm going to talk a little bit about this ultra light Benro affordable fluid head system and then I'm going to take a question that involves step-up rings and filtration and circular filters so hang in there on that question I got one from Jim that's a really really good one so in the meantime I want to talk just a little bit about this little guy you know as I said in numerous workshops that I've taught I get people using these bigger fluid head systems and they fall in love they want it for sure and yet I've had a couple of people you know either they're a little bit older there's a disability there's some reason they travel to you know really remote spots where weight is a huge issue and they just want something a little lighter other people that I've gotten numerous questions from ask you know could we find something a little bit more affordable and so I went out on the hunt and basically came up with this I had a student in my Charleston South Carolina workshop last year that had a pretty nice Benro fluid head system it was a little bigger a little heavier than the one I'm using but I thought it was really nice well laid out well built and then I stumbled upon this little carbon-fiber leg fluid head with a leveler system it's got a center column that's not typically my favorite I know a lot of you probably heard me Rayleigh and Center columns in the past with tripods but the system is light you know before putting this clamp on it it's just under five pounds with the clamp it's just barely over five pounds I put it on the scale it gets just about as tall you know that this is my my tried-and-true favorite of favorite get so you know monster thousand dollar pair of legs with the bowl and the Manfrotto head this is the enduro set of legs that I often link and steer people towards gets right up to eye level it's got that bowl that makes leveling any kind of fluid head including the the my favorite the Manfrotto 500 aah really nice and simple this one it has nice clicking leg locks you can extend it they're carbon fiber finish is quite nice on them and again 350 bucks five pounds everything you need except that ARCA clamp which is only like twenty nine dollars I think and when you set this guy up lo and behold just almost the same height without raising the center column as my favorite enduro so you know you raise the center column it actually goes up to between the two of their Heights now you know anybody that listens to me regularly about tripods knows raising the center column loses a lot of stability your stability is really focused on the intersection of these legs when you're using a head you know probably not such a big deal on the pavement if you don't have high winds this thing does come with a hook where you can you can hang your camera bag from it which could create some more stability I'm a huge fan of these hammocks as everyone knows these little tripod hammocks you know everything shown here is in my approach in the scene links including this one and in the the text in the description on YouTube about this system I'll put the links to this guy there's an aluminum version that's a pound heavier on an amazon has both pnh only has the aluminum version so I would really steer you towards Amazon in this it's three hundred fifty bucks five pounds again it doesn't level the same way so the way that I tend to prefer is with the bowl where you just open that that lever from below this version has a built-in leveling adapter which is something that I link people using these they're leveling adapters that go between traditional tripod center column or the the mount on a traditional tripod and the head this Benro system comes with some one sort of integrated you just loosen this knob and you get quite a range of motion here to just get nice and level and there's a nice big bubble level that sticks right out on the side it's easy to see it's actually easier to see the Manfrotto system and then it's the same basic system you have a tilt adjustment you have a pan adjustment nothing you can do will take it out a level it's really easy to set up on if you put that arca-swiss clamp on that I recommend well $30 clamp boom you're on if you use an L bracket on your camera it's easy to get vertical just like that you can lock your pan and only tilt you can lock your tilt and only pan everything stays nice and level has all the benefits of the other fluid heads I recommend including the ability to get back and get leveled so that it doesn't flop everything basically that I've talked about all the reasons why I like fluid heads over ball heads are included in this little nice lightweight easy to use package so it also just in case you wondered comes with a really nice custom padded case so pretty darn good deal I like it a lot again if you haven't watched my previous videos it's as easy as loosening this thing you pull off these little plates and you just mount this arca-swiss clamp to the plate that comes with it that slides fore-and-aft on the top easy peasy other nice thing is if you do have one of these other fluid head systems that has a mem frota plate the plates are interchangeable so you can switch in and mix and match to your heart's content it works just like any other or the mainstream fluid head plates with no Manfrotto system so I think it's pretty cool I can see myself carrying this on some international trips as a second tripod instead of this much heavier version and I can see it taking it as my solo tripod on big backpacking trips ski mountaineering trips Alpine trips places where weight really matters it seems like a nice stable solution that's tall enough sturdy enough and you know if I have any problems with it I'll report back to you but it seems pretty darn well-made most of the parts are cast there's a little bit of plastic he stuff kind of in the middle but it's protected it would be tough for something to get in there and hit it everything else seems nice and made out of metal and sturdy so you know I'm looking forward to years of good use out of it I'll let you know if anything changes now I had a question from Jim that I alluded to earlier about whether it's a good idea to use step-up rings with a circular polarizer or not and I'm gonna say absolutely yes so here's the I look at it I used these Hoya HD 3 UV filters to protect all of my lenses basically all the time and and I buy those and whatever size my lenses and leave them on the lens you know and I haven't found any dilatory as effects using them pointing them straight into the Sun as long as you keep them clean I don't see any problems with them just like the front element of your lens and they're really protective and keep me from bashing up and damaging the front element island those are the only ones that I buy for each and every lens so I like to keep those on my lens particularly if I'm working in blowing sand or around salt water and wind you know things that can really mess up the coatings and the front element of your lens when however I'm using my really expensive really really nice HD 3 polarizer from Hawaii you know just the disclaimer I'm a Hawaiian bastard not because they've paid me big bucks to be a Hoya ambassador I'm not a ambassador because I really like their products you know they sort of pitched me on trying out some of their products and testing him four of them and I took him on a trip to Europe back in I don't know was before my baby Pike was born so maybe 2015 and I absolutely fell in love with them they're just a really high quality product so what I do is I buy all of my filters in an 82 millimeter thread I have one lens I have at Athena 11 to 20 that I like on the DX format on might be 500 the crop sensor format and it has an 82 millimeter filter thread so I switched up to all my filters being 82 millimeters my nd filters and my polarisers and I discovered in the process that I have less than getting on my 77 millimeter lenses that way by using a step-up ring so you know here is an old d810 if you wonder why I'm not using the D 850th because I'm filming this with the BA 50 I love the video out of my da 50 and I've got my Nikon 20 millimeter 1.8 which is a 77 the one meter filter thread and I have a Hoya HD 3 UV filter on it I'm gonna just whip that off I really recommend taking the UV filter off don't stack these filters unnecessarily because that can lead to van getting and I've got it a couple of my commonly you stuff it brings here I have 58 to 82 and I have 77 to 82 I don't think he should use more than one if you can avoid it you know sometimes if you're going from a really small size like 43 for a little tiny kit lens or something it's fine you might get from 43 to 58 and then 58 to 82 or 77 whichever size you're using but you know that's not going to create a problem going from such a small size to a big but if you're moving you know anywhere in the larger sizes don't buy those kits that have you know two millimeters steps and you go out like a cone you're gonna wind up going so far out from your lens that you are gonna create vignetting problems particularly with a wide angle I'd recommend just using one of these little step up frames again all the stuff I'm talking about is in the 80s links there so there's a link to that approaching the scene links on the YouTube text so just jump there take a look or you can go to my web page at WWE tonight comm slash 80s and you'll find those links to those there to you so here I've gone from 77 to 82 and then I actually use these little Manfrotto zoom filter rings they're they're magnetic this is a this is a filter adapter a lens adapter I'll screw that on this is an 82 millimeter zoom magnetic lens adapter and then I have this bag with all of my might my high-end polarizing and ND filters so I've got a 4 a 6 and a 10 stop Hoya solace and D filter in here and an HD 3 circular polarizer all in 82 millimeters and all I want to do when I switch is just go click and it's on there and as I take a look at the live view on the back I have 0 vignetting as I look into the lights there's no vein getting in the corners on 20 millimeters stepping up to 82 so my recommendation is by you're good filters that you use interchangeably with all your lenses here and D filters and your circular polarizers in a big filter size I really recommend 82 because you never know you might think that 77 or 72 or 68 s the biggest lens you're ever gonna have and then next year they're gonna come out with some lens that's just amazing for your system that's got an 18 millimeter filter thread and you know trust me you'll be sad because you'll have to sew all your stuff at a loss get that bigger set of filters and adapt up and I guarantee that using this step-up system is gonna actually help you avoid been getting and it may allow you to use the zoom system like I am if I put a straight 77 zoom ring on this lens with a 77 filter I have a feeling it might vignette I'm not getting it by stepping up to 82 so that's my my tip in the way that I use these filters all the time I know a lot of people just keep these on their cameras they'll buy a lens adapter for each lens from zoom and use a magnetic filter or a magnetic lens cap it's an option for me I just said that things back off and stick my UV filter back on when I'm done using it not that big a deal but the cap on put it in the back so that's it I really really think that for those of you looking for a lightweight budget option in a fluid head this little Benro is a great way to go there's a link in the text there's links on my 80s links page that I've added in for that all you need to get with it is this hope arca-swiss clamp 30 bucks everything else comes with this for 350 bucks and it's 5 pounds again there's an aluminum version that's 6 pounds and 250 dollars so even cheaper same head same same level or just an aluminum set of legs and a little bit heavier really really cool setup and you know I hope you're enjoying these videos if you are please click like please click subscribe share with your friends and if you have questions and want to join the conversation don't hesitate to send a question to questions at Hudson Henry comm or log into the website at www.att.com/biz you you

Channel: Hudson Henry Photography

Views: 7,781

Rating: 4.9512196 out of 5

Keywords: Benro, Fluid Heads, lightweight, tripods, photo training, photography, gear, how to, Hudson Henry Photography, education, Photography Class, tutorial

Id: J01nQg_f4fo

Length: 15min 38sec (938 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 11 2018