Photography And Old Age....

Photography And Old Age….
I know from other posts that old age brings with it increasing difficulties with handling heavy camera/long lens combinations. I had to face this when I purchased a Sigma 500 mirror lens recently, its narrow field of view meant I had trouble keeping anything smaller than the potting shed in the viewfinder. Trying to handhold a K3 and the very heavy 60-250 was also proving a problem so I decided to try a gimbal combined with a very stout tripod and a field monitor.
I can thoroughly recommend this course of action – though I must admit you would not want cart this equipment around for very long! The photograph of the feral pigeons was my first shot using the set-up. As a matter of interest it also gave me the chance to try the Kenko AF 1.4 conversion lens behind the DA*300. I was surprised how good the Kenko is given that it was a third of the price of the highly regarded Pentax 1.4. The birds were about 60 feet away.

Looks like a nice setup
You won’t be hiking to far but for short trips out of the car ,perfect
Slightly jealous 😟

I find now that a few hours shooting with the K1 and any lens hand-held leaves me with a sore neck and shoulder for a couple of days.

For landscape/architectural work I invariably use a tripod now, but for mad Cocker Spaniels I have no choice but to get down to their level. We do suffer for our art

I bought a Manfrotto geared head for much the same reason. DA*300, FA*300, Meyer 300 are murder to keep steady and you hurt afterwards. IQ and keepers certainly went up rapidly after that. Even with a good ball head it's difficult to get the shot right with a heavy lens. Leaving aside chasing birds in flight with a gimbal head, if you lock it in place, having decided on your shot, does gravity cause it to slump slightly as happens with a pan head?

No David this one does not slump - the top knob is very large and it is very easy to tighten firmly. The whole thing is very heavy and totally rigid! Supposedly made from aluminium alloy, but I would put the weight at about 3.5 pounds so cast iron would seem more likely! I have found that the more gear you stick on top of a tripod the more interfaces there are to allow unwanted movement. The internet is awash with all sorts of weird and wonderful gimbals, I went for what look the strongest and the cheapest (£60). Beware - the seemingly identical gimbal with Benro written on the side is advertised at £259 !!

NB. If you were to buy this particular gimbal a little WD40 makes it work that much more smoothly, well it is a cheapy

... and then arthritis of fingers and hand arrives. It hasn't hit me yet, but I have friends who struggle with knobs and knots. A big lever would be much better. Old age can be cruel!

Steve

I'm still in the transition phase - don't need a tripod yet (well, not for the things I photograph), but definitely need image stabilisation of some sort...

A compromise that I sometimes find useful: I have an old 'Bilora' collapsible tripod. It is very flimsy when fully extended. However, the legs telescope down to about 9 inches (23 cms) head-to-bottom. In that collapsed state it sits against my chest with Pentax at eye level and is much steadier than pure hand-held. Not comparable with a proper tripod of course, but it weighs next to nothing and can be carried about with little more trouble than the camera alone.