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I have general purpose tripods that work just fine. I need something to use with long lenses. The vibration is so bad I can not even focus with my current ones (I can adjust, remove my hand, adjust again and so for the but do not seem to get good focus that way). I don't have a lot of money to spend and even if I did, I can not justify spending it on this as it would not get a lot of use.
Weight is of no consequence. I could care less if it weighs at much as a truck (big and heavy sounds good). I would think a heavy tripod would absorb vibration anyway. It would be good if it can handle very heavy large lenses too.
So does anyone have any advice? I was thinking old vintage all metal tripods on ebay. They don't have to be in perfect condition. I can clean it up, rebuild/re-grease etc. The problem is its really hard to tell which ones are big heavy tripods as it seems most of the companies that make them also make light duty tripods that look heavy (hard to tell from pics). I already bought a quickset tripod that looked heavy duty that turned out being very lightweight with lots of vibration. Its a nice general purpose tripod so no big deal but of course I can not keep buying tripods to try them out. It seems very hard to find information when trying to check out ones on ebay too.
Gear head would be find, in fact it would be preferable.
I'm almost tempted to make one. Is the mount between the tripod and a head standard or do different brands vary? Perhaps I could buy a head and make a tripod (doesn't have to collapse really short and weight is no issue). I do have metal working skills though no machine equipment (though you would be surprised what I can make by hand).
Any thoughts?