Tripod system for long lenses

[Mark Sasahara]

Hi Lauri,

I haven't used any long lenses on the XL2, so you know more than I do in that department. Me personally, I would want a little bit of support. But I'm just paranoid. I'm used to a cine camera, where you have a bridge plate that is fastened to the bottom of the camera and the rods extend forward to support the lens.

From your reports, it seems fine, just in my mind, it just seems a little precarious.

How is the weather Finland? Did you see any interesting birds? Any you were hoping to see?

[Patrick King]

Originally Posted by Lauri Kettunen

...and the whole system was supported on the fluid head from the lense. That is, the X2 body had no support.

Lauri, I think you are justified in assuming the connector is built to support the cameras weight. The fact that the Canon people did it with their ultra-long lens would lead you to believe your assumption is correct.

Mark, the fact that the connector will support the weight, doesn't mean that it should be used that way. Pure physics of a lever indicates that simply placing enough hand weight on the camera to press a button will be enough to flex the position of the field of view. Maybe I'm just ham handed with mine, but I can imagine making a camera adjustment where the camera body is not supported and not seeing the image change as a result of manually manipulating the camera. Lauri, did you use the LANC remote alot to avoid this?

[Lauri Kettunen]

Originally Posted by Patrick King

Lauri, did you use the LANC remote alot to avoid this?

Yes, this is definitely crucial. Without a LANC remote control the whole system oscillates for a while when pressing the rec button.

I do agree that an additional support could be useful. This is, indeed, basic facts of mechanics. (Obviously, Ron would not market his Ronsrail unless there was some idea behind it.)

The crucial point is to get the lens and the camera well balanced; If the center of mass is properly over the fluid head, that makes things much easier. I don't know whether Canon did really design the XL1 and XL2 bodies such that centering mass is easy with the 400mm/f2.8 and 600mm/f4.0 mm lenses, but that's the case. However, with the 70-200mm/f2.8 zoom this is a slight problem.

If a support is employed, one should also take into account the thermal expansion. In very cold or warm conditions the expansion of the support may differ from that of the camera body + lens combination, and as a result the support may create tension between the body and lens.