The "New Gear/Willy Waving" thread

Went to pick up a D7100, came home with this :o

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Finally ordered a Redged 522K for hiking... spent pretty much the whole day flipping between that and various other options from sirui, combophoto, beike, velbon, three legged thing, mefoto, manfrotto, hahnel, rollei and god knows what else.

Ordered at 4 o'clock this afternoon from Outdoors Photography and opted for free standard delivery which I expected to take a few days, but just got an email saying to expect it tomorrow :)
 
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So my lightweight backpacking panoramic solution cobbled together from all manner of bits and bobs is finally complete -

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First impressions on the Redged 522K are fairly positive. Overall good build quality and everything locks down nicely. The half-twist leg section locks and leg angle thumb locks work really well. A few small niggles though -

1. I feel the default angle on the legs is a bit narrow - they've gained a few extra centimeters of height at the cost of some stability there. The middle angle is much more stable however and I rarely use a tripod more than half extended anyway, but there's not always room on whatever slippery rocks I tend to find myself teetering on for a wide leg spread.

2. There's quite a lot of flex with the 4th and/or 5th sections extended. Again not much of an issue for me but I might have hoped for a bit more rigidity at this price point - I'd say the legs are a comparable length and strength to the 4 section Manfrotto 393S it replaces, and those can be had for about £30 if you shop around. The Redged folds up considerably shorter though.

3. The head seems pretty good. Certainly more robust that the tiny little thing on the Manfrotto and Arca-Swiss compatible. There are three built in levels however the main horizontal level seems a bit off - it doesn't agree with any of the other levels on the head or my pano rails.

4. All the leg locks work really nicely, but the locks on the centre column are a bit rough. I'm hoping they'll losen up but right now it seems like adjusting them is a bit of a wrestle that can dislodge the tripod feet position given how light it is.

So reasonably pleased if not blown away. Will give it a proper test early next week hopefully.

Pleased with total weight given everything is a bit 'on the cheap' - tripod, ballhead, pano head, nodal rail, L bracket, E-M5, 9-18, remote release, filters and a change of batteries comes in at 2.3kg.
 
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Raymond Lin said:
I see, and why the need for that 90 degree bracket? What advantages does it have? Except I can see it's on a rail ?
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The L bracket and rail together allow the camera to rotate around the lens nodal point (or entry pupil if you prefer) when in portrait orientation for parralax-free UWA panos. Obviously it can be quickly reconfigured for landscape orientation as well depending on the desired composition.
 
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Raymond Lin said:
I see, and why the need for that 90 degree bracket? What advantages does it have? Except I can see it's on a rail ?
Click to expand...

When in portrait orientation you don't want the camera rotated off to the side, you want the camera weight remaining above the center of the ball head and tripod. Plus many ball-head and camera combos don't work well when rotated to 90*.
 
D.P. said:
When in portrait orientation you don't want the camera rotated off to the side, you want the camera weight remaining above the center of the ball head and tripod. Plus many ball-head and camera combos don't work well when rotated to 90*.
Click to expand...

The ballhead never has to be rotated to the 90 degree position - it's always vertical. You can't avoid moving the camera weight off-centre if you want to avoid parallax, unless you add a second rail between the ballhead and pano head.
 
To expand;

The ballhead acts as a leveler so you don't need to worry about perfectly leveling the legs.

The rotational head sits on top of the ballhead and is the axis around which everything turns.

The rail allows you to mount the camera 'behind' the axis such that the nodal point of the lens, rather than the camera body, is directly above the axis of ration. Therefore when you rotate for each shot of the pano the entry pupil of the lens remains in the same place and you don't get any parallax error.

The L bracket allows you to shoot with the camera in either portrait or landscape orientation without tipping the ballhead 90 degrees, which obviously would also cause parallax when rotated off-axis. It's also quite handy as a grip as a bonus.

Obviously this is only useful for single-row panos. You could add extra bits between the L bracket and the camera to allow multi row panos but it all gets pretty complicated at that point and you're probably better off with a proper pano head.
 
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I've just bought a 7dayshop Canvas Photo Messenger Shoulder Bag for £25. I expected it to be a cheap nasty affair, but risked it as I've got a bit left over this month. It seems very well built but as it's canvas, it won't protect from more than a light shower, but does have a water proof cover with it. It's slightly bigger than the Lowpro 150 event messenger bag, and has straps under it to tie in your tripod, which is coincidentally just right for my new Redged tsc-525k. It's a bit deeper too, and looking at it, maybe more so than the Event messenger 250. You'd fit a gripped 5dmk3 with lens attached, facing downwards. The only downside seems to be the studs to close the strap. They seem very weak so I think you'd need to close the bag using the straps under the bag with the tripod too, just to be safe.

I also bought some silica gel pouches to stick in my collection of bags :D
 
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