If you watch football and you’re like me, you look at all the shooters on the sidelines, you’ve more than likely seen the Benro Hi Hat many, many times (my record is 21 Hi Hats at one game!). If you’ve ever watched the BTS for wildlife documentaries, you’ve probably seen the Hi Hat many times. And if you’ve ever tried to buy one you know how hard they can be to get and that’s because they are in such high demand. And you might be wondering with so many out there why you’ve never head of the Hi Hat? Well, that’s because it’s a tripod that at most only reaches 11″ in height! It is a very specialized tripod that took me six months to find and get, it’s in that kind of demand. What the heck is it for and why did I so want one?

NFL sports depend on them for all those amazing ground view film they shoot. The stability of the Hi Hat / BV8 video head produces the smoothest panning for big rigs you can imagine! This isn’t for macro shooting, not for static plane photography, this is for action shooting with big glass. The #1 reason I wanted it is to photograph waterfowl at water level. Whether shooting stills of video, when I get down this low I am not stable and I can see it in my photographs. That’s until I mounted my rig on the Hi Hat and now everything is sharp. My other application for this tool is ground-to-air aviation video. Like I said, this is a highly specialized tripod that not everyone needs but if you work close to the ground with big glass, you gotta check it out. Hi Hat, man oh man!

Traveling with gear can be as nerve racking as moving a home! I experienced this anxiety for the first time I went to fly with my first 600f4 some thirty years ago. There were no options for a photopack that would fit in an overhead back then. That’s why I designed and manufactured the first MP-1 and then MindShift & I came up with the MP-1v2 (pictured above, regretfully sold out a few years back). The MP-1v2 was designed to do exactly as you see, fly with the big glass. What you see here is the Z 9 / Z600f4 TC in the long lens compartment. I often replace the hard lens shade with the LensCoat flex shade if I’m going to fly on a regional jet for the extra padding around the lens’ bell. The Z 8 flies with the Z24-120f4 attached and Z14-24f2.8 in the same compartment. In the top compartment is the Z400f4.5. The Z1.4x is in the compartment with the Z400f4.5. (Some projects where I’m working the entire time out of a vehicle and I need more gear, I will use the ThinkTank Airport Security V3. You can see my gear locker options in the updated page.)

When I was younger I would have more gear pilled into the MP-1v2 that often just went along for the ride, never pulled out and used. Now a little wiser, I give my back a break by leaving that gear back in the locker. The Profoto A10 will go in my checked luggage along with RRS flash arms that I use with the Z600f4 TC & Z400f4.5. Once I arrive at my destination those items get moved into the MP-1v2 and back into the check luggage once I head back home. I hope this helps those who were asking and those who have wondered about traveling with the big glass.

I’m so excited by the Benro FS20PRO I’m not sure where to start! It’s less than $85, supports the Z400f4.5 w/Z 9 attached, it works and feels like a fluid head but it’s not, it weighs only a half a pound (a half of a pound!) and is not just a ball nor rational head, and it works brilliantly! On the Benro Tortoise tripod, it’s a dynamic duo I’m taking everywhere. How does it do all of this? I gotta admit, I’m not really sure of the engineering but do know it works beautifully. You have what appears to be your basic panning function with a lock, but it feels as smooth as a fluid pan. You have a lock for the limited ball movement and separate lock for full tilt movement. The movement of the camera platform then has the smoothness and “tension” of a fluid head, but it’s not. Did I mention it’s less than $85 and weighs a half a pound? It has a video handle that folds down that contains a built-in allen key. The mounting platform (accepting swiss grove plates) rotates a full 360 degrees as does the panning base. It’s a fantastically simple, elegant, solid head, my go to now. It’s a gorgeous head!

It was another gorgeous moning at the Water Ranch. The Ring-necked Ducks were being particularly friendly this morning often coming closer than I could focus. The Z600f4 TC’s ability to capture minute detail boggles my mind and when I saw all the drops of water, the barps of the feathers pop within the narrow band of focus at f/4, the thought popped into my mind. What would happen at f/11? So I dialed f/11 in and instantly saw my shutter speed head for the basement, 1/40! Capturing the detail requires that extra depth of focus, but also a shutter speed to stop motion. Ducks bob up and down and side to side. 1/40 ain’t enough to stop that motion alone so I needed to really watch peak of action. Then I needed to really shoot a lot of frames because it is really a low precentage shot. And in the end, I only needed 1 frame, the one you see above, to be successful. To get the shot then cost shutter speed, lots of frames, time to go through all those frames at the minimum. That’s the price of depth!

The easiest and best blog post I’ve gotten to write in a long time! Z 9 Firmware update now adds Bird and Aircraft detection (OK, I lied, there are two things) to its brilliant AF! Yeah Baby!!!