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Tripod + Fluid Head

J

Jack Shanahan

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I am looking for a high-end but affordable ($2k?) tripod + fluid head system. I checked out Sachtler's FSB6, FSB8 & DV10 @ BH the other day and was thoroughly unimpressed with the arms - as most of them would not clamp down well. It was an issue even the sales guy was aware of as a major flaw. Are there other brands that perform well for the Epic/Scarlet users out there? I would love an O'Connor but I can't afford a Rolls Royce either. Why are they so expensive? Thanks, Jack
 
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I have sachtler FSB 8. Also, it is for sale. And yes, althouth it is a great fluid head, panbar design should be better. You must crank it really hard to lock.
 
Kamilla Lusa said:
I have sachtler FSB 8. Also, it is for sale. And yes, althouth it is a great fluid head, panbar design should be better. You must crank it really hard to lock.
Click to expand...

I've found the only way to really get it tight is to lock it down with part of the 'bend' in the clamp. One of the reasons I love my ancient O'Connor 50 - it has splines to hold the pan bay firm.
 
Check out the Libec line, I demoed a few at B&H and bought the H55, sticks, w floor spreader. I've flown all over with the Libec and use it all the time for simple interview w "B-roll" jobs.
 
By the way here is my NAB 2010 notes for myself:

OConnor makes great heads of course. The Oconnor rep offered me a 30% discount on showfloor gear used during the week but that just brings it down from $10k to $6.6k. Too nice. I had 0 complaints bout the quality but I can put up with quite a bit for $4k.
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Sachler see Oconnor but no NAB discount or off-show deals.
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Cartoni makes one of my favorite heads the Focus. Only thing I don't like about the focus is it has a bit of swing back. So if you end a shot it sort settles back slightly. They have a new head the FocusHD which seems to fix that and is still less than $1.5k
They also sell a little DSLR fluid head which I was hoping would be cheap. It had decent performance and was really tiny, about the size of a normal tripod still head but was overpriced @ about $900. It would have made an amazing $500 head or a godlike $300 head but $900 just puts it in competition with real prosumer fluid heads. I guess they made it a little too nice.
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Monfrotto made a new fluid head. It's exactly like every other Monfrotto I've ever used. It's got a giant wiggly dead zone. It drifts back. It sticks slightly and it's impossible to properly balance. But it "now has ball bearings for the first time!" according to an overly enthusiastic sales guy. I neither know nor care whether anyone else has ball bearings. Whatever innovation they added didn't create an improved product.
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Libec is a company I recently heard of. They make some really great fluid heads. The mechanism was better than the Cartoni Focus, maybe on par with the FocusHD and for $300-$400 less. Only problem is they looked and felt like a discount power tool. They feel like the first hit to the head would destroy them. It just felt like cheap ABS plastic. Jason says he's used them a lot and liked them and they very well may be strong but they just felt cheap. Then again, I've busted a Cartoni Focus before (the sales guy pointed out they've modified the design to fix that. I guess I wasn't the only one.) so maybe build quality is subjective.
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Cool new small company I've heard good things about Gearnex is selling a $7.5 gear head, which is a steal for what it is. I predict a lot of rental houses and smaller owner/operators who rent out their packages will pick one up.
 
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