Staying level in portrait mode on a monopod

codrus

A month or so ago I shot pictures at a belly dance show. I was using my 50D and 70-200 2.8 IS, and this was the first time I'd tried using a monopod (Manfrotto 680B). I was using it directly attached to the tripod ring on the 70-200, since I don't have any sort of head to go between them. Looking around on the web, it seems most people recommend using either a ballhead or single-axis tilt head on a monopod.

One of the main issues I had, though, was getting the camera straight when flipping it to a portrait orientation using the tripod ring on the 70-200. Many of my shots were off by a few degrees and while I can fix that with the tilt tool in Aperture, I lose pixels and sharpness in the process and both of those were at a premium already (it was dark, so I was shooting at ISO 1600 and close to wide open). For landscape orientation it's got a mark on the ring, for portrait it doesn't. I could add one, I suppose, but if I stick a ballhead on the monopod then I'm not sure how much it would help.

Any thoughts?



thanks,
--Ian

Wil Davis

I used to use a ball-head (Manfrotto 484RC2) on my Monopod (Manfrotto 3218), but found that it gives rather too much freedom, so now I use a single-axis tilt (Manfrotto 234RC).

HTH -

- Wil