[Leica] Wooden tripods

[glehrer at san.rr.com (Jerry Lehrer)]

Luis'

Basalt?  What are you talking about?  How does basalt help?

Jerry



Luis Miguel Casta?eda Navas wrote:
>
> On 28/10/2007, at 18:23, Sonny Carter wrote:
>
>>> Actually, I was curious about the vibration and damping 
>>> characteristics of
>>> wood tripods as compared to similarly sized Carbon Fiber or Aluminium
>>> models.
>>>
>>> I can't compare them, but one point Luis brought out is important.  My
>> wooden tripod is very stable at full extension, and that's important to
>> me,as I'm 6' 4" tall.
>
>
> Wood is usually the most stable and vibration-free of similar sized 
> tripods unless you're going to ultra heavy and big aluminium tripods 
> made for TV cameras. Is not a casuality that they're used for 
> theodolites in field measurement where those characteristics are 
> critical  (mind you those only have 1 extension key if any).
>
> Once the wood is correctly treated (even all the holes) and the metals 
> used are well thought there is no problem with water or mud and there 
> is no tubes which are going to be filled of water if you shoot into a 
> stream, for example. Indeed, you'll have to care the wood from time to 
> time.
>
> Vibrations and other similar stuff depends on the unit / head / camera 
> combo more than on a specific model, so you won't know until you can 
> test it for yourself. The harmonic vibrations might depend of many 
> factors, sometimes they could be easily removed with a little piece of 
> cork, or might be a nightmare, but said this, I won't care unless I 
> can notice them.
>
> On the other hand, a well designed tripod will deliver strong 
> performance no matter what they used to build it, but carbon is very 
> rigid for its weight, so theoretically you can make a taller tripod 
> with the same stability than another one made out aluminium for 
> example, but they are a magnet for lightning if you need to care about 
> this. This problem is avoided with basalt which is on pair to carbon 
> in its characteristics.
>
>
>
> _