Project365 - Know Your Gear !

Introduction

I tend to read a lot of photography material - everything from Popular Photography to Chris Gampat's excellent webzine The Phoblographer. I read about hardware reviews, about tips and tricks, and tutorials about various techniques. Sometimes, it's as simple as realizing some aspect of what your gear can do that you weren't aware of ! Those are always happy moments...

The Setup
This particular post isn't specifically about how I set my gear up per se. More accurately, it's about some extra "features" I wasn't aware of. Today, I am specifically looking at my tripod. It's a Manfrotto 190CX Pro3, with a Manfrotto 486RC2 Ball head on it. Riveting stuff, I know ! ;-)
It's a pretty versatile unit, made with carbon fibre legs for extra rigidity. But that particular medium also makes it lighter than aluminum - which is important, when you have to lug the thing in & out of your shoot !
The Photos

The tripod comes with a raised centre column, allowing me to change the height of the head beyond that of the top of the legs. But the centre column can also detach and be used in a 90 degree fashion. While this sounds a little odd, it allows me to move the camera off the centre of the tripod, which I find handy for when I want to shoot macro photography. In this photo, I didn't need to add weight to the tripod, to counterbalance the weight of the camera. But there is a hook on the base of the tripod which allows just that.

Here's a photo whereby I am using the tripod to support the camera below the head ! The centre column can be reversed a full 180 degrees, allowing it to support the camera. This photo further showcases my EyeFi card, which directly beams my photos to my iPad. I like to be able to see the images as I take them, but the tiny screen is hard to make out. You can also see my off-camera flash, complete with Cactus v5 triggers, and an inflatable light diffuser.


Lessons Learned
It pays to learn about all the features of your gear. You never know when you might have some challenging situation to overcome !

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