- All right, how insane is this location?
(upbeat music)
We're at the Bonneville Salt Flats,
which is a place I've been wanting to come to
for a super long time,
ever since I had the Triumph Bonneville before I crashed it.
But then I bought another Bonneville.
This is where they set a bunch of land speed records
out here cause it's just flat.
I got this Rubicon out here and some FPV drones.
Do you guys taste the salt, yet?
- Jonathan said it's safe to.
- Tastes like salt.
Yep.
So huge shout out to our sponsor, SmallRig.
Thank you for bringing us out here and.
Well, you've heard of SmallRig?
- Yeah, I buy everything from SmallRig.
- [Gene] Do you really or are you just saying that
because they're sponsoring our trip out here.
- No, like a lot of our like small accessories
that we use for the cameras.
- [Gene] Yeah.
- Right, it's all like SmallRig.
- I actually started buying SmallRig stuff
years and years ago because they make those arms
that you use for holding monitors and stuff.
They make quality stuff on a budget.
Speaking of quality stuff on a budget, the video tripod,
which is I think which is what this video
is most likely gonna be about.
And I read those comments about how I'm only making videos
about super expensive unaffordable stuff lately.
Well here, $400 bucks. (people cheering)
You haven't seen this tripod yet, huh?
- No. It's the first time.
- Honestly, I've been testing this out for a couple months,
been doing a couple shoots with it,
and some of you have even asked about it,
but so far it's been holding up.
Video tripods can easily go, you know, five to even $10,000,
which I've made videos on before, and they're amazing.
But they're also $10,000.
What are the things you look for in a tripod?
- Mobile, fast and not as heavy.
A tripod shouldn't slow you down.
- [Gene] Yeah.
- So if it stops you for any reason,
it's probably not a good tripod.
The single latch releases both stages,
which is very nice.
It saves a lot of time
instead of having to release one and drop it down,
then release the other.
The max height is pretty impressive, isn't it?
- Yeah, even like my $4,000 tripod
doesn't even go up this high.
The thing about tripods
is that they're not necessarily like the sexiest topic,
you know, but at the same time,
it's probably one of the most important tools.
Isn't it a saying that if you're gonna move the camera,
you better have a good reason to do it
or something like that?
Have you ever heard that saying?
- Yeah, every camera movement has to have a purpose.
- Yeah, this place is so cool,
and we wanna come back right after it rains
because apparently it turns into like a giant mirror.
Even though we're getting direct sunlight,
I feel like the lighting is so even still
because we're basically standing on a giant bounce board.
Probably the most obvious reason
why you would want a fluid head tripod
is because you want to be able to do your pans and tilts
without it being all jerky like (Gene squeaking).
And definitely the tighter the lens goes,
the more obvious that your instability will show up.
I'm gonna go all the way into 240 mil right here.
I actually turned off all image stabilization.
I'm just gonna get some tracking shots.
Just have a counterbalance in here.
So if I bring it up to here and I let go of it, it stays.
Now it is a single strength counterbalance.
On the fancier heads you'll notice has a adjustable.
Even though this is just a single stage,
it's still way nicer than not having one
cause if you forget to lock the tilt
and then you walk away from it,
you know, the camera will eventually just go
(Gene making crashing sound), right?
Which is never fun.
But here with this payload, it stays stable.
Or if anything, it'll just kind of just bring itself
back to the middle.
And also notice that this is actually a plate
from the DGI Ronin RS3 Pro, gears in here,
which kind of get in the way, but check it out.
Right here it says for RS2 and RS3.
So you could actually switch between the two types of plates
and then it still has its stoppers.
So just in case this comes loose,
it's not gonna slide off.
- Your lens is on like what, 200 right now?
- [Gene] Yeah.
- [Jonathan] Dang.
- [Gene] Does the job, right?
- [Jonathan] It does the job.
- Obviously getting shots like that,
impossible without a fluid head.
Was that fun?
- Yes.
- My god, there's so much salt on the car now.
It's delicious.
I feel like we need to get some FV shots
to intercut with it.
Add a little bit of that intensity.
Also, I didn't want this giant pelican over here
for nothing.
(engine whirring)
(upbeat music)
- [Carrie] I just looked over and I like see you
right there in my rear view mirror.
Like what's up? (Carrie screaming)
- Did it really just die?
- Wait, your camera just died?
No!
The battery's good.
- Wait, so what's wrong?
- Take a photo.
- Error, communications between camera and lens is faulty.
Clean the lens contacts.
I cleaned the lens.
- Oh dude.
Like I had this like for about 10 years now.
- How much of a bummer is it that it like busts on you
right out here?
- I know.
- No!
- I was able to take like two photos and then bam.
But it's all good man.
- Oh, what a bummer.
After I'm done filming this,
you can use this at least.
It's always a pain in the ass
to travel with a bunch of gear, but when you get there,
it's just like the shots come out so nice.
Like look at the shot.
Just with the sun rays coming in back there.
It looks so nice.
Also, depending on your terrain,
sometimes you might wanna just press this button.
It releases that, and it reveals some spikes underneath.
You just spike into the ground,
so that may be useful in some cases,
but this seems to work pretty well in most cases.
So sometimes you could get away
with digitally stabilizing an image
to make it look nice and smooth.
But if you have a lens flare in there,
and you digitally stabilize it,
the lens flare's gonna be going like that.
So it definitely is the best to stabilize your camera
with something like a tripod or a gimbal
opposed to any sort of optical image stabilization
or digital stabilization or IBIS or any of that stuff.
(engine revving)
He's having fun there.
This is actually Carrie's very first time
using a fluid head.
So go ahead and adjust the height.
- Okay.
- So there's these latches right here.
Yeah, and then this is nice that it's soft here, right?
- [Carrie] Yeah.
- So you can pick it up like that.
The thing is you're never gonna get it
perfectly leveled out.
So you usually have a bubble leveler like this.
So in order to level that out,
you're gonna take this and unscrew it.
- Ooh, okay.
- Yep, and then you're just gonna level that out
and then go ahead and tighten it back up.
- Ah.
- [Gene] All right?
- Okay, so the tripod doesn't have to be perfect
for the camera to be correct.
- No, rarely do we actually get it perfect.
Now we can pan it, and no matter which direction we pan it,
it's always gonna be level.
It's never gonna be Dutch.
- What's Dutch?
Just not level.
- Dutch angle is like here.
That's it like, she wanted too much.
Look at them.
You guys are looking good over there.
I'm gonna just start getting shots of them now with,
and I'm your free camera man now.
Let me drop this real quick
and just make sure we're balanced out right here.
Cool, and off you go into the distance.
Just keep walking until we tell you to stop.
How long do you think they're gonna keep going?
It's already passed nine o'clock,
and we still have a little bit of light left.
And we still have two more drone batteries.
So this is going back up in the air.
(engine whirring)
(upbeat music)
Woo hoo, all right.
We definitely got some good stuff there.
Oh, look at the camera though.
Yeah, the camera always comes back so caked.
I probably realistically
only have like the first few passes good.
Before the camera just gets caked.
It got the views that the drone
and the camera have been through.
But if you don't want this to happen
to your camera and drone,
then you could always put a tele lens
and just throw it on here instead.
- [Sam] Lift it up a little bit.
There you go.
Oh, that's just right here.
And then I could just go, okay, I like this.
- One of the big things for me is
I hate it when I have to use a lock here
and a lock down here.
- Because I mean the ones that have multiple locks,
I always have to tell an AC or a PA or something
to come help me out, but this I could just do it on my own.
I don't know how I feel about this little handle.
- Oh, oh man.
Like so wait, stop that right now.
- Okay, sorry.
- [Gene] You've been doing the set life for a while.
- It's been good.
I just can't, you know, mess around as much.
I have to be professional.
- It's like the grownup job, right?
- Yeah.
- Like compared to YouTube.
- There's been a couple of times
that like I've been a first AC and my DP
or the camera operator recognizes me.
- [Gene] Are you the guy on YouTube
making inappropriate jokes?
Is that you?
- Yeah, it's like, oh, man.
Can't believe you're here.
- Are you having trouble there sir?
I feel like I'm doing it wrong.
Maybe it's this way.
- Guess what?
- Oh, is this the side one?
- Top loaded. - Oh!
- Slam and go, top loaded.
- So you just recorded me struggling for no reason.
- When you have a cage on here,
and you have rails and a follow focus unit
and stuff like that,
you're trying to line it up to slide it in.
It's a pain in the ass.
When you top load something like this, it's amazing.
So doing D-I-T work,
like do you know how to download a memory card, legit?
- I use this program called Shoplift Pro,
and it kind of organizes everything.
It's super easy,
but I feel like it's an important job to have.
- If you mess that up,
that's just like all the work for nothing.
- And usually the mess-ups happen when you're rushing.
- [Gene] Yeah.
- You should never rush anything.
- [Gene] Yeah.
- I feel like any beginners out there
that just bought a fancy camera
and don't have enough more money for like a fancy tripod,
just get this one.
- It works.
- You're balling on a budget.
- Yeah, balling on a budget.
Hey, that should be the title of this video, thumbnail.
(upbeat rap music)
It looks like we could get straight down
on this tripod head, not quite straight up.
This could kind of limit your tilt up, right?
But then you could actually have the break on still
and reposition where the switch is
so that it's not gonna interfere.
Sam, what are you doing?
- I want to throw this at the windshield.
(driving rock music)
(Sam laughing) Oh, no.
(driving rock music)
- [Gene] What did they just say?
- I'm in the oh (beep) position.
- [Gene] Oh, what's that mean?
- That means if a car comes,
I need to run away that way.
(engine revving)
(upbeat music)
- [Chase] So it's only one lever.
- [Gene] One lever for all of it.
Yeah, that's nice, right?
- That's good.
- Yeah, do you do a lot of stuff on the gimbal?
- I do gimbal work, yeah.
- This one you can kind of like switch between the two,
so you can like just pop it off of a gimbal
and go straight onto here.
That's all.
- Dude, all you don't have to tell me
SmallRig's thought things through before.
I love all SmallRig stuff.
- Hey, man, so I let you borrow this SmallRig tripod.
What do you think of it?
- So far, super lightweight.
Super key, especially if you're traveling a bunch
like we are, super run and gun.
I needed to borrow this thing
cause my arms were just falling off,
and I don't need that shaky shot in everything.
Both legs drop out is super nice.
- [Gene] Yeah.
- Versus having to sitch this one, sitch the other one.
You're not gonna find carbon fiber for $400
realistically anywhere else.
- All right, we're here to film some planes landing.
Is that what we're trying to do?
- That's what we're trying to do.
- So excuse all the background noise.
- It's so loud right now.
- I know, right?
Why don't you have a fluid-head tripod yet?
- Because I don't wanna spend the money on it, that's why.
For this I decided to use the 800 millimeter
or 1600 millimeter with a two times converter.
- Ah, you got a cage on that?
- SmallRig, yeah.
- [Gene] Oh, dang, okay.
Did you know SmallRig's sponsoring this episode?
- Shut the hell up.
- [Gene] Yeah.
- No, shut up.
Are you serious?
- Yeah, no, yeah.
Have you used the video tripod before,
like a fluid head with like a 75 mil bowl or?
- Not really?
- So this is a 75 millimeter bowl right here.
So they come in different sizes.
This is pretty universal,
so you can pretty much take any other 75 mil bowl head,
put it on here, and you can pretty much take this
and put it on something like
if you wanna get like an ultra low angle shot,
you can get something called like a high hat.
It essentially would have this mount just like down here
or like a Dana Dolly where you would just drop this in
and slide it around like that.
So there are different size bowls that are common,
and the bigger of a bowl you get
the heavier duty the tripod becomes.
So this is a 75 mil.
This is actually my favorite cause it's what I use the most.
It's like a good middle ground
where you can carry some pretty heavy cameras,
but it's also, you know, pretty lightweight.
You can go to like a hundred or 150 mil bowl
for like carrying Alexas that are rigged out.
You could go a size smaller than this to like a 50 mil,
which is fine for like mirror less cameras,
but once you start rigging out cameras
or you know you wanna use like an FX9
or something like that, it definitely,
like 75 mil is like a good sweet spot
where it's very, very portable and still super lightweight
but also can handle pretty solid payload.
- So how much weight can this thing really hold?
- Legs generally can hold a ton of weight.
The head itself is usually gonna be your limiting factor.
- What I'm really curious about
is how the tilting and the panning feels
when using it with like an 800 or 1600.
- Yeah, let's throw on your camera.
Look at this.
He's got his bracelet tool set right here.
- Right here, here we go.
- Trying to be all cool, but check this out.
The little magnetic tool right here.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- You almost got to use your bracelet, you know.
- Almost, almost.
- Look at this thing.
This thing's pretty crazy.
Like it's got like every type of tool on here.
- Bottle opener, hex, Philips.
- Who makes that?
- Ah, Leatherman.
- So I actually have the DJI Ronan RS3 plate on here,
and I think that's an ARCA Swiss.
You should actually just be able
to slide that straight into here.
Oh, perfect.
- We're good to go.
- You have those R62 for a little while, huh?
How are you liking it so far?
- I'm loving it.
It's an awesome camera. (cross talking)
Yeah.
- What is that?
- What's what?
- What is this?
- Oh, it's the 800 millimeter or.
- No, what is, turn it around, what is this?
- Oh, this is the potato jet addition.
- What are you doing?
- No, Canon did that.
That's how it came.
- I definitely prefer mid spreaders like 95% of the time,
except for when you're in a studio,
floor spreaders are kind of nice
because when you release like this
then it just goes straight down
if it's on the floor spreader.
Here, it's like the legs are trying to contract
as you go down.
- I see, yeah, yeah.
- I generally hold it like this
and just kick in to crush (Gene groaning),
and then you can just get it down like that pretty easily.
- Okay, I see.
- All right.
There's this plane taking off on the right.
Let's see (cross talking)
It's right there, yeah.
Dang, 800 mil.
That's insanely tight.
Without a video tripod, these kind of shots are impossible.
- Impossible, you can't do it.
Yeah, I've tried. (both laughing)
Even handheld. (cross talking)
- You've tried a handheld track track with an 800 mil.
It's funny, we're like, we need good shots
of the planes landing.
Yeah, definitely need the 800 so we can get it close.
And then we get here,
and the planes are landing like 10 feet away from us.
- $400 for all of this.
- Yeah, all of it, yeah.
- That's a killer deal.
- Oh yeah.
I thought we were gonna go wider.
Why are you putting on a doubler?
- I wanna see how crazy we can get.
Oh geez.
I think I saw somebody.
There's that bird right there, right?
- Oh, I see it right there.
That light post.
Oh, dang.
You got like an extreme close up of that bird.
- But see that's the beauty about this tripod.
I did it so quickly and so easily.
With anything else, I'd still be struggling
to find the bird.
- I remember you had this same setup,
and you were trying to get a shot of the moon,
and you would line it up and then you would lock it
and then when you let go it was like boomp.
- Yeah, yeah, it was impossible.
I never got anything.
- What's nice about a solid fluid head is like
when you plant it, and then you lock it there,
it just stays.
Does yours have a pan lock separate from like the tension
and adjustability and all that stuff?
- It has a lock,
but there's no real like smoothness or like tension.
Like no gradient.
- Yeah, yeah, so this one's got the lock, so that's nice.
But you also get to adjust the tension
of how much resistance you want on your pan.
I actually like to have a decent amount of tension
on my pan.
And then you also have this knob here for your tilt tension,
but then it doesn't have a separate independent tilt lock.
But what is nice about this
is that when you do engage the lock
by just tightening it a little bit more,
then it definitely keeps it on lock.
Like let go of it real quick.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Oh, oh no.
But yeah, that just goes to show how good the lock was.
- Oh there it is.
I see a freaking face.
- That's smoothness out of a 1600.
- It's crazy.
Is this the tripod that you used for Veritasium?
- [Gene] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- I saw it in the video.
- You saw it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- I love this lens.
I don't use it that much,
and I have used it with my tripods,
but this tripod for $400 with this right here,
100% worth it.
- You wanna put a more reasonable lens on here?
I mean, I don't think we need 1600 for all of this.
- Yeah, let's do it.
Yeah, look at that.
This is 240 millimeter wah wah waah.
- I mean when the airplanes are landing
16 feet away from our faces.
- [Man] Yeah, I know, I know.
- And you can feel the jet fuel burning your face off.
It's a reasonable lens for that.
This is gonna feel like a piece of cake to you now.
Crotch kick, bam.
Ow, and then you always want to turn off all the locks
on all these before you store them.
If you have the locks on, and it's getting bumped around,
it could.
- Oh I see, I see, I see.
- It's just a rule of thumb.
Like all fluid head tripods,
generally you wanna like loosen everything up.
- Loosen it, yeah, okay, I see.
Really easy, lightweight.
No, this is great.
For 400 bucks, It's a killer deal.
- [Gene] Cool, link in the description down there,
down there.
- You know what though?
It looks nice too.
It looks really cool.
- Yeah, yeah, you look legit.
Yeah, you look like you know what you're doing.
I feel like we're the pit crew right here.
It's like wound the gimbal.
(frantic motor noises)
Zoom into that guy.
- [Photographer] Let's see what he's doing.
- [Gene] He's trying to compete with you.
He's trying to show us up.
- Yeah, with the 800 millimeter
you can hear what they're saying.
- [Gene] Oh look at those guys over there
with the TV camera.
Look at our big camera.
You know what they say about guys with big cameras,
you know. (Gene laughing)
- They make a lot of money.
- [Gene] Back to the best 800 mil lens on the planet.
- Here we go.
- I'm recording the guy that's recording the guy
that's recording something.
This lens is just stuck in F11?
- F11, you can't go higher or lower.
Yeah, and when you put the extender, it's stuck at F22.
- [Gene] Oh, yay.
- [Photographer] And any little of dust,
you can see it, anywhere.
- [Gene] Everything's in focus.
- An atom and a proton.
Yeah, this is a lot of fun.
It's fun cause it's really steady.
- [Gene] Yeah.
- It's really, really steady.
- This has an adapter in it.
So you can actually spin this off
and reveal like a three eighth inch underneath it.
I use it for things like putting master wheels on there,
which is like super heavy.
I think it's essentially,
it's just like a giant brick of metal.
If you just want like a small lightweight slider.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- You just slap it straight on top
and you don't have to worry about it
tweaking the tripod head.
- Yeah.
- And the tripod heads generally have less payload capacity
than the legs themselves.
So by putting it straight onto the 75 belt bowl,
you have more payload capacity.
- Yeah.
- But like the downside of it
is that it is kind of a thread on type of thing.
So if you don't tighten it hard enough,
and then you go like this real fast,
then it can break loose,
and then you start unscrewing it, right?
- Yeah, yeah.
- But SmallRig's working on some solutions
to be able to lock it into place.
- I got a bird.
I got a bird.
- [Gene] Dang, got a little bird.
I got him too.
- So is it possible to like bring this up
to close the legs a little bit more
and then lock it like this?
- Yeah, so this spreader is on the widest setting right now.
So then you would just loosen this.
- [Photographer] And this is, oh, I see.
- [Gene] And then you could retighten it like that.
- [Photographer] Oh, I see, I see.
- And now you've got like a a tighter footprint.
- Yeah, as I'm turning and walking around the tripod,
I catch myself kicking the legs.
This is much better right now.
- All right, so give us your review on the tripod,
the thing you like about it.
The thing you don't like.
- I like how steady it is.
I like how light it is, and I love the price.
I love the price.
- What do you not like?
- What don't I like?
Can I connect it to like wifi or something like that?
Can I watch some Netflix on it?
- My overall thoughts, I honestly had a lot of doubts
when I saw how cheap this is for a 75 mil fluid head.
But honestly I put it through some use and abuse,
and it held up.
I think for this price range,
it's gonna be really tough to beat.
Let's go ahead and pull up some comments
from the last video, which was about the Freefly Ember,
a super slow-mo camera.
Top comment is from Ryan Wiseman.
"It's great to see more options other than Phantom cameras.
"Now instead of I need to rob a bank to afford this camera,
"it's my wife left me because I went bankrupt
"affording this camera price point, which is far better."
So yeah, this is precisely why I'm starting to test
more budget friendly equipment.
Do not want you guys robbing banks.
The slow-mo guys are here.
"Seems like amazing quality for the price point.
"Love the size too."
Well, I love the slow-mo guys.
I mean, they use the Phantom to get
legit million frames per second stuff, pretty wild.
So it's cool to see you guys here.
"The whole world is coming out
"with Sony camera and lens reviews,
"and Gene's like hold my beer."
Yeah, I should have probably come out with a Sony video.
That probably would've gotten more views,
but once in a while I just feel like
I need to just skip an Embargo video
and just focus on making something
that I have a lot of fun making.
Andy says "This channel should change its name
"to Potato and Friends because all reviews
"are basically Gene showing you or interesting gear
"to all his friends or random people he meets."
Yeah, I hope you guys have been enjoying the content
where I go film with friends.
I mean, honestly that's the type of filming
I personally enjoy and I feel like
it just kind of helps these videos
get a more well-rounded perspective.
Wait, what is that tripod called?
Funny you ask.
It actually does have a name.
It's a SmallRig Flame,
I've just been calling it the carbon fiber 75 mil.
Oh, it's a FreeBlazer.
So yeah, link down there in the description
if you decide that you want this thing
or if you just want the legs by itself,
you can also do that and have a single latch release.
But that is it.
Thank you so much for watching it
and see you guys next week.