After days of consideration, I still have a couple qualms with the equipment that I’m looking at buying for my camera. The shutter release poses no problem whatsoever. I’m going with the Canon name because it seems to get better reviews than the generic ones. The tripod legs aren’t causing me much confusion. I decided against the Manfrotto carbon fibre (CF) legs because they were just too expensive. The 3011 legs are the way to go for me (as of right now, that is). The only decision I have to make about the 3011 legs are whether to get them in the original aluminum finish or the black finish. Here are the pictures of both:

Black:	Aluminum:

That, however is a rather small decision to make. The colour of the legs doesn’t really matter that much to me.

Now, the big decision that I have to make is on the head. I really want to get the Manfrotto 3265 Grip-action ball head:

because it seems to be the easiest to use and have the widest free range. However, the one thing that concerns me is its maximum weight capacity, which is only about 2540 g. My camera body weighs 685 g, and my heaviest lens (the EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM) weighs 1380 g. Doing the math, 685 + 1380 = 2065 g, which is quite close to the maximum weight capacity. The weight differential allots for a mere 475 g buffer.

At first I worried about the weight when I would potentially invert the tripod center column–in order to take pictures of subjects low to the ground–that the force of gravity would pull on the camera body and lens, surpassing the 475 g buffer. That would result in the unfortunate destruction of the camera body and the L lens. However, upon further thinking, I realized that I would probably never use the 100-400mm L upside-down, but rather I would use my EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM instead. That lens only weighs 600 g; significantly less than the 100-400mm L. That means that the combined weight of the body (685 g) and the macro lens (600) would be 1285 g; allowing for a 1255 g buffer. I believe that type of buffer should be sufficient for inverting the center column.

The other possibility would be to get a pan-tilt head which supports a higher maximum weight (3991 g). The problem with that type of head is it requires more adjustment to get to the right position. While that isn’t necessarily a big deal, I like the free movement of the grip-action ball head.

As of right now, I’m thinking about going with the grip-action and trying it out. Later on down the road, I will purchase different types of heads (including a pan-tilt) to support larger maximum weights.

Enough technical rambling for now.

|:| Zach |:|

NOTE: all images were taken from bogenimaging.us