I heart my tripod (mostly)

As previously posted, I got a new tripod (Induro AX-214) to replace the too-long Manfrotto. While I haven't been able to go out and use it as much as one would hope for (having a sick wife meant having to pick up extra household chores), I'm giving it a work-out these days. I particularly like the ability to angle the center column. Here is todays setup:



In case it's hard to see, I'm shooting the petal-less tulip that's in front of the camera. I need to be pretty much parallel with the stem, hence the contortions.

I would have been hard-pressed to get this setup without serious damage to the other flowers, if at all. Other situations would simple have been impossible, such as placing the camera right next to a wall. I'm never getting another tripod without this feature.

The downside is that it takes a lot of turning on the two knobs on the column to get them to hold fast. There is no click or other indication of when it's fastened, the best you can do is tighten it a lot and re-check that it doesn't move. If you've been carefully positioning the camera in a cumbersome position, this can be a real bother. But part of it may just be that I should get used to placing the tripod in a place where I don't have to crawl over the tripod to get to the camera.