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Hand-holding the DF/IQ180

FredBGG

Not Available
Kenyon Labs stabilizers

A triopd on a Zodiac is pretty much useless.
What you really need is a gyro stabalizer.

You could do it with either a kenyon labs stabalizer or pretty much any Of the newer IS II or Vr Ii lenses from canon and Nikon.

The kenyon gyros are amazing. They will even stabalize chopper vibration.

Another thing you can do is use a v-grip air and grasp the front of the base of the v-grip in a particular way. put your thumb under the grip and you index+middle finger along the top of the protruding base fingers and thumb pointing to your right. This compresses your left wrist and quite effectively dampens vibration. It also lets you more effectively push your hands against eachother. I get more stability this way. the oversized nature of the v-grip helps too when using this "method".

Yoga also helps tremendously. Even without becoming an expert. In particular one excercise. Its the one where you hold you arms straight infront of you and place one albow over the other bringing your for arms up into a twisted forearm praying position. It stretches an stabalizes the shoulders neck and arm. It's a golden excecise for photographers. Best of all you can do it just about anywhere. It takes a while to get there for most people, but starting in a very hot shower or sauna helps:thumbup:

Another thing that helps is using someones shoulder as a make shift tripod. If you are static an ergonomic shoulder
fitting. Used in motion pictures all the time, but the cener of gravity of the camera has to be centered over the shoulder
 

FredBGG

Not Available
There is also another method for obtaining stable images in the Ocean. It's probably not applicable here due to space problems. Anyway this is how it works.

It is a submerged bouy with a weight at the end and an several stabilization disks on it.

Choppy water pretty much is only moving at the surface. A few feet under the water is often very very stable.

I have used this system for shooting both stills and motion picture. It's almost creepy how well it works.

It sort of feels like a giant spoon in porridge.

I does have a certain risk element to it so I only recommend using it with a water housing or less expensive gear. A catermaran also makes this far more practical.

The system works somewhat like rocker stoppers for boats.

http://www.fishing-boats.info/rockers.htm
 

Bill Caulfeild-Browne

Well-known member
Thank you all for your input. I'm not actually expecting to shoot much from zodiacs, if at all; I only mentioned them in the context that I may not be able to carry much gear on them. And I have found that a crappy little tripod is worse than no tripod at all.

I'm going to play with a monopod and see how much that helps - and use many of the suggestions here - multiple shots in particular work well for me, the second release often is sharper than the first!

Thanks everybody.

Bill
 
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