Vinten Vision 3as and manfrotto legs, it fits !!

[Paul Kellett]

I've just picked my Vinten vision 3as head, it fits my manfrotto 525 legs perfectly.
The legs still close, nowhere near fouling the locking shaft.
I haven't give the new head a proper roadtest yet but it'll get one this week, i'll post my findings, but i can already tell the difference between this and the old manfrotto 503hdv head.
In the meantime here's some pics of it on the manfrotto legs.
I paid £680 for the head.

Paul.

[Paul Kellett]

Ok, i've had my EX1 on the head and the difference is massive, much better than the manfrotto 503hdv.
One thing though, the perfect balance, when i have the spring tension as soft as it can go and no damping, if i tilt the camera/head all the way forward or back the head tries to go back up to horizontal, not all the way, just about a third of the way back up, almost like the spring isn't completely slack or the EX1 isn't quite heavy enough.
I can almost cure it with a bit of damping.
Is this normal ?
Will the head wear in a bit ?
Or is it a camera COG thing ?
I tried a vision as3 at the IOV show last week, admittedly with a slightly heavier camera and i could easily and instantly find the "perfect balance"
Overall though i'm very happy with this head.


Paul.

[Paul Kellett]

Oh yes, almost forgot, i use an el-cheapo shoulder mount with a manfrotto adaptor plate on it so i can quickly switch between tripod and shoulder mount, the vinten plate is quite a bit bigger than the manfrotto plate but is (was) only about 3mm too big to go into the manfrotto adaptor, with a bit of filing the vinten plate now fits into the manfrotto adaptor.

Paul.

[Chris Soucy]

Glad to hear you like the head.

I'll be interested to see how you find the levelling adjustment of the 3 AS as compared to the Manfrotto head on the 525 legs, from my experience (with other Manfrotto sticks) it won't be anywhere near as good, tho' here's hoping.

Sort of had my doubts about an EX 1 on the 3 AS with respect to the PB system, think you may need to add a bit of ballast "up top" - wireless receiver in the flash mount, shotgun mic in the external mic holder etc to get it to properly kick in.

The true test with the 3 AS as compared to the 503 comes with full zoom, shed loads of drag to keep it under control, and a steady hand.

The limitations of the 525's withstanding, you should be able to pull of a flawless pan start, pan flow and pan stop with nary a hint of sticktion or pull back, tho' I bet those 525's wind up and down a tad too much to pull it off perfectly.

Good luck.


CS

[Paul Kellett]

Hi Chris.

My 525 legs don't wind up much at all to be honest, i tried the vinten sticks which come with the 3as head, i put plenty of drag on and panned the head and they did wind up.

The levelling adjustment,, the collar on the vinten handle is just a couple of mm bigger than the manfrotto collar so there's not much difference, if the collar was a lot bigger then yes i could see how that would limit levelling capabilities.

Full zoom and panning, even without much drag is good, plenty better than the manfrotto.

Paul.

[Mike Beckett]

I feared as much with the COG and the 3AS with smaller cams. I wish Vinten had a 1AS or 2AS as well as the 3 and higher.

It's something Sachtler have done well, with their FSB-2, FSB-4 and FSB-6 (and predecessors) - these are tripod heads of high quality for smaller camcorders. If I want to own a smaller camera and get a good tripod, it's probably the only choice, even if they don't have the superb Perfect Balance of the Vinten.

With Vinten, users of such camcorders are stuck with the Vision range, which, with all due respect, are Manfrotto knock-offs and are not appealing to me (and others, I'm sure). We don't all want to stick a 3kg piece of lead on the camera to get a balance on a 3AS!

[Paul Kellett]

Ok, re my earlier post about the Vision 3AS head and the EX1 not balancing properly.
I emailed Vinten and informed them of the inability to "perfectly balance" the EX1 on the new 3AS head.
I had a very quick reply from Peter Harman from Vinten,( Peter had a hand in designing the head) he was not impressed that the head wouldn't balance with an EX1, he realises that a lot of EX1 owners could be looking at buying one of these heads.He said he had to get it sorted.
He also saw my post about not being able to balance the head/EX1, he informs me that they do watch these forums.

So, today Peter did a 5 hour round trip to my house and fixed my Vision 3AS head, when i say fixed i mean just a slight adjustment, (i can't go into much detail except to say it was to do with internal settings, not something an end user could do), the result is a head that does now perfectly balance with an EX1, with or without receivers, small battery or big battery.

Notes were taken by Peter and i'm pretty sure any more Vision 3AS heads are going to balance as they should.

I found Peter to be a very down to earth approachable guy and with this sort of customer service i'd have no hesitation to buy from Vinten again.

Paul.

[Mark OConnell]

The guy did a five hour drive to your place to do the adjustment? Wow. I'm impressed.

[Paul Kellett]

Yep.

Paul.

[Marcus Martell]

WOW,in EU for a cell phone they(customer service) don't drive to your house even is 5 minutes far....

Good shot Paul

[Mike Beckett]

Just to correct my previous posting, and to make this clear:

"With Vinten, users of such camcorders are stuck with the Vision range, which, with all due respect, are Manfrotto knock-offs and are not appealing to me (and others, I'm sure). We don't all want to stick a 3kg piece of lead on the camera to get a balance on a 3AS!"

I meant to say:

"With Vinten, users of such camcorders are stuck with the Protouch range...."

The Vision range are of course in a different league, much much better than the budget Protouch range!