Tripod, filters and stuff...

[Flibster]

Went searching for my tripod yesterday....couldn't find it.
Phoned my Dad who was with me the last time I had it - he didn't have it...

It appears that it was left at Autosport International show this year...

D'oh!

Still - gives me an excuse to buy another one. Again only a cheap one but it also allows me to order a few filters at the same time.

They're only going on a Canon A80 so don't need to be rediculously expensive. However I should have a 20d turning up shortly *hopefully next week* so I'll use the A80 to play with more and will keep it all in the car rather than keeping the 20d in there.

Found a Hama tripod for £13 which will do - 166cm maximum height and does everything I need from it tbh.

Filters on the other hand I have no idea about.

Looking at a Astron circular polarizer *comes with a collapsable hood as well*
Also thinking of getting a UV filter and a set of ND filters

With the adaptor I've got on the front of my A80 it's 52Ømm thread so should be fine getting filters to fit.

Any other suggestions

Simon/~Flibster

 

[rpstewart]

Tripod - depends if you want to put the 20D on it or not, if not then pretty much any old tripod will do, an A80 weighs about as much as three feathers so isn't going to need a £300 carbon effort.

Filters you can go one of two ways - filters for the A80 only or filters you could use on 20D lenses too.

A80 only
Wouldn't bother with a UV one tbh, they're really only used for lens protection and the A80 lens is so small and recessed that it's not worth it.

NDs are interesting, if you just want them for getting long exposures (waterfalls etc) then screw in ones are OK, maybe look at both 2 and 4 stop ones. Graduated NDs are a bit trickier - Cokin A or P series are easier to use as you can move the graduation relative to the lens.

See below for CP

A80 & 20D
UVs - I have a UV on the front of both my L lenses simply for protection, only advice is don't put a cheap filter on an expensive lens (goes for all filters really)

Any other filter and especially polarisers can be used across all lenses if you get one to fit your biggest lens and then use step up rings for the others. The only disadvantage of this is that big filters aren't cheap.

Cokin filters are similar, you get a holder for the square filters and the holder fits on to an adapter ring which screws onto the filter thread of the lens, Therefore 1 holder (£10), filters as required (£15-25 each) and an adapter ring per lens size (£5 each)


Never heard of Astron, I use Hoya filters which are pretty good (3 levels of quality available), B+W also good but v.expensive.