Camera and Tripod problem


slmka

Senior Member
Dec 5, 2004
595
0
16
Hi Guys,

I have 2 problems when I shooting around.

1) Tripod plate turn loose after shoots.

I often have to tighten my tripod plate with the camera. It seems removing my camera from tripod and when i adjusting the camera it slowly turn loose. Does this happen often?

2) There seems to be space betwen my tripod plate and camera base (Suri 1004 + 500D Thrid-party battery grip). When using lens like 70-200 f4 I have a hard time adjusting the camera on tripod. Once I have adjusted my tripod and release the camera, the angle will fall off a bit, may be some mod the the camera base can help in this?

Thanks everyone in advance for advise =)
 

to answer your first question,

1) definitely, your tripod plate doesnt have a lock mechanism, so your fidgeting here and there, mounting and dismounting etc will slowly turn it loose. its like how your shoelaces undo themselves after a while

2) there could be something about the screw thread's length vs. your camera's mount depth, or simply you didnt screw deep enough :bsmilie: although im curious as well. maybe some pro bros can advise?
 

Hi Guys,

I have 2 problems when I shooting around.

1) Tripod plate turn loose after shoots.

I often have to tighten my tripod plate with the camera. It seems removing my camera from tripod and when i adjusting the camera it slowly turn loose. Does this happen often?

2) There seems to be space betwen my tripod plate and camera base (Suri 1004 + 500D Thrid-party battery grip). When using lens like 70-200 f4 I have a hard time adjusting the camera on tripod. Once I have adjusted my tripod and release the camera, the angle will fall off a bit, may be some mod the the camera base can help in this?

Thanks everyone in advance for advise =)


U are using Sirui 1004 ? With the k10 ball head ?
 

yes, using k10 (or is g10) ball head, the ball head itself is okay. But rather is the plate and camera is causing the tilting down of camera...
 

1. Did you tighten it fully (i.e. use allen key) or is there anything that is obstructing the tripod plate connection?

2. g10 do experience creeping with longer lens. you should have upgrade to a g20. did you use a Tripod Mount Ring btw?
i hope you are doing micro adjustment of your camera angle correctly.
 

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2) There seems to be space betwen my tripod plate and camera base (Suri 1004 + 500D Thrid-party battery grip). When using lens like 70-200 f4 I have a hard time adjusting the camera on tripod. Once I have adjusted my tripod and release the camera, the angle will fall off a bit, may be some mod the the camera base can help in this?

Thanks everyone in advance for advise =)

common problem with most ballheads (in particular the cheaper ones) when it comes to telephotos.

you want to avoid this problem, get a more expensive ballhead.
 

when using with a 70-200, are you using the tripod collar as well?
 

ball head ok but plate lose? so did you tighten the plate screw with bare hand or allan key?

using 70-200 you should mount to tripod to the lens tripod collar, not on to the camera body.
 

Sorry, forgot to mention, mine is a 70-200 f4. Recently I have got myself a tripod ring for the 70-200 f4. Which seems to balance the problem, but for my other lens (Tamon 70-300) which doesnt have tripod ring it will be a problem, holding the lens itself i can tilt the camera up by a bit (ball head is not moving). It is the very small gap between the plate and camera which causes the problem, is there like i can add on padding to stabilize it?
 

Sorry, forgot to mention, mine is a 70-200 f4. Recently I have got myself a tripod ring for the 70-200 f4. Which seems to balance the problem, but for my other lens (Tamon 70-300) which doesnt have tripod ring it will be a problem, holding the lens itself i can tilt the camera up by a bit (ball head is not moving). It is the very small gap between the plate and camera which causes the problem, is there like i can add on padding to stabilize it?

probably you are trying to use the head beyond its "holding" ability. Time to look for a better head. Maybe RRS?:devil: http://reallyrightstuff.com/Items.aspx?code=BALLHEADS&key=cat or markins?

if there is a small gap between the plate and the camera, probably this means that the plate is not for your camera and hence the ill fitting.
 

Sorry, forgot to mention, mine is a 70-200 f4. Recently I have got myself a tripod ring for the 70-200 f4. Which seems to balance the problem, but for my other lens (Tamon 70-300) which doesnt have tripod ring it will be a problem, holding the lens itself i can tilt the camera up by a bit (ball head is not moving). It is the very small gap between the plate and camera which causes the problem, is there like i can add on padding to stabilize it?
perhaps your plate is too small, show couple of photos of your whole set up, close of the plate mounted on the camera base etc...
 

Yah perhaps you can show us what is this gap. I would expect the plate to flush with the camera body. Unless your vg is not even at the tripod screw area. I have the sirui g20 head ( yeah you are right it's not k) . The plate doesn't leave any gap between my cam a body though:think:
 

How come TS was mentioning about the gap between tripod plate and 3rd party grip, yet so many ppl "ridicule" his ballhead? Seems kinda elitist.
I would've thought the main problem is the gap.

Sounds like the depth of the threaded socket on the 3rd party grip was not sufficiently deep.
 

Thx for everyone for the advise, will try to do some shots and post up tonight =)
 

How come TS was mentioning about the gap between tripod plate and 3rd party grip, yet so many ppl "ridicule" his ballhead? Seems kinda elitist.
I would've thought the main problem is the gap.

could you highlight where this "ridiculing" of ballhead is going on?

i am reading through the thread, i can hardly see any form of ridicule going on. unlike in some other threads...

btw, i experience the same thing when i use my giottos setup and 70-300 for macro. so i just compensate by locking the ballhead a bit higher, then let it drop down slightly... :dunno:
 

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could you highlight where this "ridiculing" of ballhead is going on?

i am reading through the thread, i can hardly see any form of ridicule going on. unlike in some other threads...

btw, i experience the same thing when i use my giottos setup and 70-300 for macro. so i just compensate by locking the ballhead a bit higher, then let it drop down slightly... :dunno:
I guess ZerocoolAstra is referring to members asking TS to upsize his ball head instead of finding the root cause.

anyway, base on TS description of a gap between the plate and camera body. ZerocoolAstra's theory of the depth of the threaded socket on the 3rd party grip make sense. :)
 

I guess ZerocoolAstra is referring to members asking TS to upsize his ball head instead of finding the root cause.

anyway, base on TS description of a gap between the plate and camera body. ZerocoolAstra's theory of the depth of the threaded socket on the 3rd party grip make sense. :)

so if it is not sufficiently deep, there is a gap... but this will affect? i thought most parts are relatively rigid....?

it sounds like what i had experienced earlier on with benro ballhead, think the cheapest one. though someone had told me that this was common problem for most benro ballheads.. had to add a washer to resolve the trouble, but this was mainly problems with ensuring that the camera would slide downwards during vertical composition because the plate wasn't tight enough.. not sure how it might affect long lenses (especially when doing landscape compositions) - if anything, this will just cause the thing to keep sliding downwards..?

anyways, many potential causes, maybe i had misinterpreted what my friend (avid macro shooter) said when i asked about the movement of my perspective after locking. come to think of it, i can't be sure if this is caused by the ballhead, or because of possible differences in tension in the lens when you hold it and release. (no, i do not use tripod collar for 70-300, who would?)
 

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could you highlight where this "ridiculing" of ballhead is going on?

i am reading through the thread, i can hardly see any form of ridicule going on. unlike in some other threads...

btw, i experience the same thing when i use my giottos setup and 70-300 for macro. so i just compensate by locking the ballhead a bit higher, then let it drop down slightly... :dunno:

I guess ZerocoolAstra is referring to members asking TS to upsize his ball head instead of finding the root cause.

anyway, base on TS description of a gap between the plate and camera body. ZerocoolAstra's theory of the depth of the threaded socket on the 3rd party grip make sense. :)

thanks :)
ya, perhaps 'ridicule' is too strong a word, but it seems a number of folk jumped to the conclusion that it's the ballhead (implying that the ballhead is not rigid enough and thus creeping after being locked).
From what TS has described, it seems like he tightened the screw of the tripod plate fully into the socket of the 3rd party battery grip, yet there is still some 'play'. The 2 flat surfaces do not meet with sufficient force. Thus even though the ballhead is rigid enough (putting aside creep), the entire camera setup can still move.
 

Following on to my post, I wish to highlight the points brought up by TS.


Hi Guys,

I have 2 problems when I shooting around.

1) Tripod plate turn loose after shoots.

I often have to tighten my tripod plate with the camera. It seems removing my camera from tripod and when i adjusting the camera it slowly turn loose. Does this happen often?

2) There seems to be space betwen my tripod plate and camera base (Suri 1004 + 500D Thrid-party battery grip). When using lens like 70-200 f4 I have a hard time adjusting the camera on tripod. Once I have adjusted my tripod and release the camera, the angle will fall off a bit, may be some mod the the camera base can help in this?

Thanks everyone in advance for advise =)

Sorry, forgot to mention, mine is a 70-200 f4. Recently I have got myself a tripod ring for the 70-200 f4. Which seems to balance the problem, but for my other lens (Tamon 70-300) which doesnt have tripod ring it will be a problem, holding the lens itself i can tilt the camera up by a bit (ball head is not moving). It is the very small gap between the plate and camera which causes the problem, is there like i can add on padding to stabilize it?
 

thanks :)
ya, perhaps 'ridicule' is too strong a word, but it seems a number of folk jumped to the conclusion that it's the ballhead (implying that the ballhead is not rigid enough and thus creeping after being locked).
From what TS has described, it seems like he tightened the screw of the tripod plate fully into the socket of the 3rd party battery grip, yet there is still some 'play'. The 2 flat surfaces do not meet with sufficient force. Thus even though the ballhead is rigid enough (putting aside creep), the entire camera setup can still move.

think the way he painted it, seemed like ballhead creep. well , at least to me.

in any case, even people complain about markins and RRS creeping, and those are relatively expensive already...

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1032&message=36141251&changemode=1

so it *is* a common problem, and i won't just dismiss it as a possible explanation.

if indeed there is some play as TS describe, i'm not quite sure if this is necessarily the definite problem. the only way to know for sure is to try to resolve the play and see if this problem continues. for all we know, maybe it's a bit of both.
 

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