Tripods for Wildlife Photography

[JR1]

Remember you get what you pay for as with everything, Nikon do TWO 80-400 lenses, the one I use is the NANO, twice the price and much better than the cheaper, same with tripods, TRY then buy the best you can, it will last a lifetime, and unlike cameras will rarely if ever date.

[Steamdreamer]

Here you are Nick but you''ll need the beard to go with it.




Personally I would avoid 4 section legs. The Y shaped centre column on these is interesting. It's very rigid. They also do aluminium models.

The biggest problem I have with mine is no one in the UK stocks the correct bag for it. I'm going to try and get someone to order one for me and return a Manfrotto one which is too big and floppy.

John
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It's amazing how difficult it is to get that right! I ended up with a Kalahari bag, and I'm very pleased with it - not a silly price, and just the right amount of padding for me.

[Steamdreamer]

This may be a good idea... my opinion keeps getting swayed this way and that I am somewhat interested in wildlife photography, but I'm not trying to use it to get rid of the burden of wealth. As seems usual with my photography interests, I seem to find some of the most demanding requirements for tripods there, (which translates to expensive).

If I get a good pair of tripod legs, I could always upgrade heads if necessary, so I could start with a pan head, and get a gimbal if I wanted in the future, or get a ball head now, which would leave the option to get a "sidekick" gimbal head in the future, if necessary, perhaps. Between those two options it depends primarily on which (pan or ball) will serve me better for most purposes, night, landscape, video etc) in the present.

Some tripods, of course, will disassemble one leg and voila - a monopod.

Apologies if someone else has already said that.

[Nicks Pics]

Thanks John,
I've seen tripod/monopod cobos. I'm not going to buy just yet.