I decided to become a member of DVinfo.net because it was the only Video forum where I could find valuable informations about which tripod to buy. I am a prosumer thinking about freelancing. I have worked with Final Cut Pro Since 2001 and have I have done a lot of editing on personal stuff as well as family events, but I haven't done payed jobs, because I want my work to look and sound professional before wanting money for it. Wanting the best possible quality for my home videos I did however upgrade to the Canon XH A1 Camcorder in 2007. I choose that camcorder because it was the best camcorder for my purpose and purse at the time. I already had acquired a great BeyerDynamics MCE86 Shortgun Mike for my previous camera. That mike enabled me to get high quality sound recordings of my children growing up. The big advantages of being the farther is the possibility to get very close to my children while recording.

In December I lost my day job do to the financial crisis and I began considering the possibility of starting as a freelancer. I knew however that I needed to upgrade some of my gear. The first upgrade was the Sennheiser EW112p wireless system, but I also knew that I needed a great tripod. I was very much considering the Manfrotto 504 535 carbon combination, but did decide to research the other options.

Boy am I glad that I did. Doing that I stumbled upon Chris Soucy s Vinten Vision Blue Review. Reading his review I started to search the web for more Vinten Reviews and I found 3 others. All of them agreeing with Chris regarding the quality of the tripod system. I am thus now the very happy owner of a Vision Blue tripod and I am at last seeing the true potential of my Canon camcorder.

Welcome to the forum! And the insanity of being a freelancer! May your days be filled with shooting and nights with editing! (or the other way around if you prefer)

Hi, Jan...........

Belated "Welcome to DVinfo"!

Always good to have a new member here, the more the merrier.

Having nice things said about my reviews makes it all worth the blood, sweat and, yes, tears (usually my missus, as she tries to make sense of my twisted English, having rattled the stuff off at 300 words a minute) that go into it, it's not all beer and skittles, to steal an English (UK) expression.

Good to have you on board, and glad my piece allowed you to make an informed decision, and that it has worked out so well for you, as it should, it's one heck of a piece of kit.

Enjoy.


CS

Hi Chris I am enjoying it very much. The only problem with the tripod thus far was me forgetting that I had turned off the image stabilization on the camera when I had the oppotunity to film my children playing in a forest playground in Denmark. I had the camcorder with me but not the tripod. I can't blame the tripod for that though and the pictures did turn out allright despict me forgetting the optical image stabilization.

Having filmed with the optical image stabilization on when filming from the tripod and having filmed with the optical image stabilizaton off the filming handheld, I now know that it is better forgetting to turn on the image stabilization while filming handheld than forgetting to turn it of while filming using the tripod. Trying to do a pan using the tripod and having the imagige stabilization turned on results in a very jerky and totally useless video.

Best regards
Jan