Looking for a Stiff/Sturdy Tripod Head for my Pentax 67II to Avoid Dreaded Shutter Shake

[DREW WILEY]

This just goes around and around. My late brother once sold Rollei and Linhof cameras. He'd demonstrate how the Rollei SL66 shutter was so smooth by setting a dime on edge atop it on a table, then tripping the shutter, and the dime didn't even tip. If you tried that with a P67 the dime would land four blocks away. But, even though he owned two full SL66 kits of his own, he preferred to borrow my Pentax 6x7, and got even crisper shots with it!

So you need to look at the overall scenario. At speeds higher than approx 1/60th, the shutter has already done its thing before the mirror hits, so there is no practical effect to that "shake" other than a bit of noise. At lower shutter speeds, you can simply use the mirror lockup feature. But I've got a couple of beautiful coffee table books based on P67 shots before the lockup model even existed.

Yes, P67 teles have improved over the years, with long focal lengths going from good in Takumar days to outright superb in the later EDIF series; and the mirror lockup feature is a real bonus too. But all this shake worry is unwarranted. All kinds of cameras have trouble if a substandard tripod or head is involved when it comes to long lens usage, even 35mm SLR's.

In terms of effectiveness of dampening, set up your 6X7 on various types of tripod materials of similar alleged weight rating. Place a fingernail against one of the legs when you trip the shutter. You'll feel it with many metal tripods, but not on a wooden tripod leg. The cellular structure of wood is actually an extremely sophisticated kind of natural engineering.

I once sold surveying tripods. The serious ones were always wooden, although sometimes fiberglass clad for weather resistance. And it's actually fairly easy to convert one of those for MF tele usage, or large view camera usage (just avoid PRC import knockoffs). They don't pack up as compact as typical camera tripods, however.

 

[Hassasin]

Sorry, I guess I don't have the background to understand this. If the camera shakes, the camera shakes. Whether that may be dampened by the tripod or surface it stands on, the shake still originates in the camera. It might not be accentuated, but to my mind, it wouldn't be eliminated.

There is certainly logic in what you are saying.

 

[MattKing]

Sorry, I guess I don't have the background to understand this. If the camera shakes, the camera shakes. Whether that may be dampened by the tripod or surface it stands on, the shake still originates in the camera. It might not be accentuated, but to my mind, it wouldn't be eliminated.

Vibration induced image blur only happens when the vibration occurs throughout a major portion of the actual exposure time. In some cases, the vibration is initiated before the shutter is actually open. And in the case of long exposures, the vibration can attenuate quickly, leaving the majority of the exposure vibration free.
A tripod and head combination that quickly damps/attenuates vibration can help with both problems - help avoid the issue in the first case (vibration induced before the shutter opens), and can solve the long exposure case

 

[Hassasin]

Support plays a lot bigger role in reducing shake induced by external forces than ones from internal vibrations created by camera itself. It is no different than camera holding technique along with fluidity of releasing shutter.

 

[Tom Taylor]

Image # 4 (The Anna Marie) was taken with the 400mm SMC Takumar equipped with a 1.4 or 2.0 TC and a Manfrotto 393 heavy telephoto lens support on a Manfrotto 475B tripod. Because the subject takes up most of the frame, I couldn't use MLU. Nonetheless, no vibration is visible in the negative despite the hefty slap of the mirror. Pentax engineers really had it together when they designed the 67II.