Hi. I have purchased a Sony Z1-E camera and am looking for a suitable tripod. After researching it seems that the Vinten Vision 3 would be a good purchase. I had bought an auto-cue some time ago, but I'm not sure whether the above tripod would be of use. Can anyone advise as to which tripod would be best to get, considering the camera and also the fact that I would like to be able to attach an auto-cue to the camera/tripod.

Many thanks.

James,

The Vision 3 is a mighty fine tripod, but it may get a tad annoying having to manually change the balance spring when you go from autocue to no autocue. Plus it's one more thing to lose.

I don't use autocue, so this is supposition, but I would consider a camera with some sort of speed balance knob instead. For example, the Sachtler DV6-SB I use is comparible in goodness to the Vinten Vision 3, and has range of 1-10kg just by twisting a dial on the tripod head.

Or, if you are doing mainly autocue and not much else, this implies you won't need super smooth pan/tilt with mega-adjustable drag at 20x zoom... so you could save £££s and get a higher end Libec instead. Just a thought.

Mike

Thanks for getting back to me. The difficulty is trying to get a tripod to suit all purposes! At the moment the plan will be to use the camera in the studio only (with autocue) but I want to have the flexibility of being able to use the same tripod for scenery shots etc.

Whilst I want to try and keep the cost down if possible, I know its probably money well-spent if purchasing a really good one.

Are there any down-sides to the Sachtler one you have mentioned - do you get drift-back on it?

James,

I get a small amount of drift back at maximum zoom. Compared to my Libecs and Manfrotto-type tripods, it's really quite minimal, and I find it quite easily controllable. The CF legs really are nice, and easy to set up too. The whole shebang weighs around 5kg.

Unfortunately there's no dealers round these parts where we can try these things out!