Why a Quick Grip Tripod Head Works Best for Landscape Photography
Hey guys! Brent here with part four of my seven part Quick Tip series: Photographing Water and Streams.
Today, I’m in Dorrigo National Park shooting the Crystal Shower Falls and I have a
game changing equipment tip for photographing landscapes: Use a quick grip tripod head! You may find them called pistol grip head as well.
Why? Watch this video and find out!
Most versatile tripod head
Why is this the best head to use? Simply put: because you can change from landscape to portrait orientation in the blink of an eye. As long as it takes you to squeeze the trigger and flip the camera’s orientation is all you need. As you can see in the video, that is about 2 seconds!
Another beneficial feature to look for is a quick release which will allow you to remove your camera from the tripod in just a few seconds as well.
Where to get one
If you’re interested in the tripod head I use in the video, you can find it here. It is a Manfrotto 322RC2 Horizontal Grip Action Ball Head with RC2 Rapid Connect.
Which tripod head do you use when photographing landscapes?
FREE LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY COURSE
Let me know in the comments section below. I love reading your stories!
Thanks for watching! If you want to see the other parts of this quick tip series:
Part 1: Reducing Glare on Water
Part 2: Photographing From a Suspension Bridge
Part 3: When Clouds Have You Seeing Gray, Look on the Bright Side
Brent.
Is this Tripod head compatible with Benro tripods?
If you plan on doing panoramic shots this is NOT the head to use. I found there is no (simple) way to keep the camera perfectly level nor measure base movement accurately as I panned with the 322. Best to keep that ball head handy if you plan on doing any shooting that is best served by a level base with smooth movement as well as a way to measure the rotation of the head. I suppose stitching software may mitigate imprecise panning to a degree, but you may end up losing some of your scene at the top and bottom and your side-to-side overlaps may suffer because of inaccurate rotational movements.
Yeah not for panorama shots – I use a different head for that. B
I use a Manfrotto with the joy stick head. It uses a friction roller for adjustments. I like the friction roller because I sometimes want to move the head slightly (very useful when doing macro photography) and I can easily adjust the desired tension.