weighing down Tripod?

G

Gene Sung

Veteran
I have the lightweight Manfrotto 701 HDV fluid head with the 190xdb legs. Good little tripod (9 lbs capacity).

There's a little sandbag hook at the top of the legs where it interfaces with the fluid head. Now I don't have a sandbag, but I figured out I can hook my Lowepro backpack to it (about 20+ pounds) to the hook and it keeps the tripod nice and steady.

My question is, since my backpack weighs so much verses the 9 lbs recommend load capacity, is this a bad idea? The last thing I want is for the legs to give out and have my camera eat it. Or does the 9 lbs limit only refer to the camera equipment that goes on fluid head?

I'm going on a filming trip to South America so I need to be mobile, so the last thing I can do lug around sandbags, so I figured my backpack might be a good sandbag substitute since I have to bring it anyways.
 
Put the sandbags at the bottom of the legs, if possible. Hanging it at the fluid head sounds like a bad idea to me.
 
So I talked to the Manfrotto tech and he says that you can hang a 20 lbs backpack from the sand bag hook without problems. In fact, he seemed to think it was a good idea to weigh the tripod down.

He says the 9 lbs tripod rating means that if you use a camera on the fluid head that's over 9 pounds, you might start experiencing unwanted vibrations due to the weight. The tripod he said, can easily support more than 9 pounds, so a 20lbs backpack attached the the sand bag hook will pose no problems.
 
gene_can_sing said:
So I talked to the Manfrotto tech and he says that you can hang a 20 lbs backpack from the sand bag hook without problems. In fact, he seemed to think it was a good idea to weigh the tripod down.
Click to expand...
I always weigh the tripod down with sandbags anytime I'm doing a time exposure or, especially, a timelapse. That's the best use of the hook.
 
You can always carry a short cord or rope to go between the tripod hook and the backpack.
That way the backpack can partly rest on the ground yet still provide stability.

Be careful if u take the tripod as carry on, some airlines categorize the legs as a weapon because
you can swing it. I flew with a 701 head and 7D in my carry on and legs in the main suitcase I checked

A gorillapod is also handy
http://joby.com/gorillapod
and I've put a 701 head on a large gorillapod before
 
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