Good advice on all fronts. I keep an older tripod in my van at all times, in case I walk out of the house without one of my preferred tripods, but I've never thought about a failure of the tripod or head. I think I'll start carrying a spare clamp in my bag that I can at least mount to the tripod in the event of a failure, though movement is limited. A clamp is cheap and doesn't take up much room. I use a quick change system from Leofoto - receiver to mount to the tripod, and plates to attach to the heads. It's really convenient for swapping out one head for another. I use a gimbal for long lens support and a ball head for short lenses. Quick and very secure. Anyway, it would be easy to attach a plate to a spare arca clamp. I might even get a cheap panning base and attach the clamp to that.
Thank you! I’m not sure why I stopped carrying a spare stills tripod and I never expected the ball head to be what broke! I will definitely be stashing a spare tripod in the 4Runner from here on out though. I did consider seeing if I could take a pair of pliers and at least wrench down the clamp one last time for the duration of the trip, but didn’t actually try that. Thanks for watching!
Great advice Jeff. Did you consider building a little platform of some sort, using rocks or whatever, to set your camera on? I’ve done that before, not because my tripod was OOC, but because I was lazy and didn’t want to get it out. I found a couple of pretty flat rocks, set them on a bigger rock that was just the right height for my composition and fired away. 😎
The thought did cross my mind, but I didn't act on it. I think if I hadn't been out with a friend who let me borrow his tripod for a few key shots I wanted I would have been more likely to see if I could cobble something together!
@@JeffreyTadlockPhotography Yes, you were fortunate to have a kind of “standby” tripod. What travel destination(s) is in the works for fall foliage photography? 😎🍁🍁😎
@@TC_Conner Yep! Was lucky to have a flexible and kind friend along! I have a workshop I am leading in West Virginia in October and hoping to sneak away to the Smokies again - just need to convince my wife that she wants to go hang out down there for like 3 days! And I'll hit local metro parks when the first pops of color start and probably a quick trip down to Hocking Hills as well.
If my gear fails, then it's telling me that either A it wasn't prepared or B it wasn't meant to be my day. The way I look at it is that if my tripod broke, I would then go to stabilisation in my camera. If my tripod failed, I would just shoot handheld. Why didn't you take the thread out and try and straighten the bolt or find a different bolt from your other tripod? Probably could've fitted in there the usually a universal size alright we just shoot handheld given that most of the modern cameras have stabilisation if you don't have stabilisation then yeah, that's an issue, but you just have to push your ISO. I can go down to half a second now. I would still be able to use the tripod and use a shutter release cable or the other solution you could've gone with is some tape and just tape the top of the tripod so it doesn't move. Always carry tape in my bag. You will break something sometimes including yourself. I've even taped a camera to a tripod because the bracket had broken and I was able to get the bracket half onto the plate and then I use some tape around the camera yep some good old gaffer tape and it worked really well. I've got the shots that I needed, always carry tape in your car and when I buy a tripod, I make sure I get a few extra screws with it and an extra ball head in the car as well but I'm very very prepared. I'm wondering, could you have the bullhead out in the tripod?
I definitely wasn't adequately prepared and found a flaw in my normal strategy! The bolt on the broken one doesn't seem to want to come out or get tighter. I tried to steal the ball head from my video tripod and put it on my FLM tripod, but while the head would screw on, because the FLM has a wider top platform, the mechanism to adjust the ball head and tighten it wouldn't turn freely, so I couldn't just keep my good FLM legs and use the head from the other one. I actually like that tape idea and shutter release - I had both duct tape in the 4Runner (always travel with duct tape!) and a shutter release in my camera bag. I wish I'd have thought of that option while I was out there! I guess tape would also work well to "repair" a tripod leg in a pinch as well - I think good tape has moved up my list a bit as a staple item! Wish I'd have had you with me out there - you've suggested a couple of things I didn't think to try in the field! Appreciate the thoughts!
Good advice on all fronts. I keep an older tripod in my van at all times, in case I walk out of the house without one of my preferred tripods, but I've never thought about a failure of the tripod or head. I think I'll start carrying a spare clamp in my bag that I can at least mount to the tripod in the event of a failure, though movement is limited. A clamp is cheap and doesn't take up much room. I use a quick change system from Leofoto - receiver to mount to the tripod, and plates to attach to the heads. It's really convenient for swapping out one head for another. I use a gimbal for long lens support and a ball head for short lenses. Quick and very secure. Anyway, it would be easy to attach a plate to a spare arca clamp. I might even get a cheap panning base and attach the clamp to that.
Thank you! I’m not sure why I stopped carrying a spare stills tripod and I never expected the ball head to be what broke! I will definitely be stashing a spare tripod in the 4Runner from here on out though.
I did consider seeing if I could take a pair of pliers and at least wrench down the clamp one last time for the duration of the trip, but didn’t actually try that.
Thanks for watching!
Great advice Jeff. Did you consider building a little platform of some sort, using rocks or whatever, to set your camera on? I’ve done that before, not because my tripod was OOC, but because I was lazy and didn’t want to get it out. I found a couple of pretty flat rocks, set them on a bigger rock that was just the right height for my composition and fired away. 😎
The thought did cross my mind, but I didn't act on it. I think if I hadn't been out with a friend who let me borrow his tripod for a few key shots I wanted I would have been more likely to see if I could cobble something together!
@@JeffreyTadlockPhotography Yes, you were fortunate to have a kind of “standby” tripod. What travel destination(s) is in the works for fall foliage photography? 😎🍁🍁😎
@@TC_Conner Yep! Was lucky to have a flexible and kind friend along!
I have a workshop I am leading in West Virginia in October and hoping to sneak away to the Smokies again - just need to convince my wife that she wants to go hang out down there for like 3 days!
And I'll hit local metro parks when the first pops of color start and probably a quick trip down to Hocking Hills as well.
If my gear fails, then it's telling me that either A it wasn't prepared or B it wasn't meant to be my day. The way I look at it is that if my tripod broke, I would then go to stabilisation in my camera. If my tripod failed, I would just shoot handheld. Why didn't you take the thread out and try and straighten the bolt or find a different bolt from your other tripod? Probably could've fitted in there the usually a universal size alright we just shoot handheld given that most of the modern cameras have stabilisation if you don't have stabilisation then yeah, that's an issue, but you just have to push your ISO. I can go down to half a second now. I would still be able to use the tripod and use a shutter release cable or the other solution you could've gone with is some tape and just tape the top of the tripod so it doesn't move. Always carry tape in my bag. You will break something sometimes including yourself. I've even taped a camera to a tripod because the bracket had broken and I was able to get the bracket half onto the plate and then I use some tape around the camera yep some good old gaffer tape and it worked really well. I've got the shots that I needed, always carry tape in your car and when I buy a tripod, I make sure I get a few extra screws with it and an extra ball head in the car as well but I'm very very prepared. I'm wondering, could you have the bullhead out in the tripod?
I definitely wasn't adequately prepared and found a flaw in my normal strategy!
The bolt on the broken one doesn't seem to want to come out or get tighter. I tried to steal the ball head from my video tripod and put it on my FLM tripod, but while the head would screw on, because the FLM has a wider top platform, the mechanism to adjust the ball head and tighten it wouldn't turn freely, so I couldn't just keep my good FLM legs and use the head from the other one.
I actually like that tape idea and shutter release - I had both duct tape in the 4Runner (always travel with duct tape!) and a shutter release in my camera bag. I wish I'd have thought of that option while I was out there! I guess tape would also work well to "repair" a tripod leg in a pinch as well - I think good tape has moved up my list a bit as a staple item!
Wish I'd have had you with me out there - you've suggested a couple of things I didn't think to try in the field! Appreciate the thoughts!