Video tripod review

As I’m just getting started in videography I bought a video tripod, but the question is, did I buy the right kind of video tripod

My video tripod is a `ball head tripod’, which means that the head, the thing at the top of the tripod that you fix your video camera to (you don’t fix your camcorder directly to the tripod), literally rotates on and around a ball.
Apparently this isn’t the best solution for videography, apparently the best solution is to use a `fluid head tripod’. These have a more fluid action, there’s no doubt about this – it isn’t just sales spiel.
But, guess what – they also cost a lot more than ball head video tripods.

Video tripod heads comparisons

The big question for a newbie videographer is, how much better is a fluid head tripod than a ball head tripod, is it worth paying four times as much, maybe five times as much, for one?
To put it bluntly, do you get four or five times as much fluidity for your money? To put it even more bluntly, how much fluidity do you actually need?
As I’m a self-confessed newbie videographer who hasn’t actually used a fluid head video tripod, it’s pretty difficult for me to answer this question.
All I can say is, it’s a wonderful experience to be able to turn my video camera in any direction I want to do fluidly – without any jerky movements.
This doesn’t answer the question of whether a fluid video head is four or five times better than a ball head tripod, of course.

Wedding videographer’s tripod review

Ok, here’s some evidence that they are at least better, and they might be four or five times better.
The evidence is this: the guy that I bought the video tripod from is a wedding videographer, and he stated in his ad. that he was selling it because he was buying a fluid head tripod.
This isn’t a sales person who is trying to sell something, this is someone who is freely admitting that although the ball head tripod has been fine until now for his wedding videography, it’s time to move on to a fluid head tripod.

Video tripod conclusions

We can draw a couple of conclusions from this: one conclusion might be that ball head video tripods are ok for wedding videography and are maybe ok for other kinds of professional videography – film-making, for example.
Another conclusion might be that they are a relatively short-term solution – at some point it will be essential to buy a fluid head video tripod. Possibly – although this isn’t proven, because they are four or five times better than ball head video heads.

Coming soon

Video footage of my ballhead video tripod in action, a look at whether physique and personal attitude influence the way a video tripod is used, some yakking about the merits or otherwise of buying a tripod off eBay, based on personal experience.