Postman Fro: It's Postman Fro with a package for you.
It's your generic package.
Hello?
Anybody in there?
I've got your package.
Jared Polin: It's Postman Fro with a generic package.
Yes.
Oh my God, it's my generic package.
What could it be?
It's so amazing.
All right, Postman Fro, thank you for bringing me more boxes.
But the question always is what is in the box?
So who did these come from?
These came from Ramesh Prasad.
Anyway, that’s not like a company or anything.
But I've got to get out my trustee knife here so we can open these up.
Small box or big box first?
Stephen, small box or big box first?
Stephen: Small box.
Jared Polin: Small box?
Here we go, let’s open it up because Postman Fro’s always bringing me some cool stuff.
If I could actually cut the actual thing, here we go – oh, bubble wrap – this isn’t
even that bubble wrap that you can pop, is it?
I guess it is the bubble wrap you can pop.
Get away from me.
Shoo, bubble wrap.
Benro tripod -- which version is this?
This is the A48FBS4 Video Monopod, so it's not even a tripod.
All right, I'm going to open the other box too just so we get both of them out and then
we’ll take a look at them and sniff them and see what we've got here.
This is a big [inaudible] [0:01:40] box.
This one weighs 15 pounds so I'm assuming this is going to be a bigger tripod.
I'm always looking for new tripods.
I'm always trying to find what's going to work best for me.
And in the last couple of years the tripod industry has kind of become the same.
Everything seems to come off the same line in China for the most part and all tripods
are just - -they just seem the same.
So I was at Allen’s Camera and he’s carrying the Benro stuff and I was like “Wow, this
is actually working pretty well.”
So I was using some of this stuff to make a video and I liked how easy it was to use.
All right, so first thing’s first, I should tell you what this one is.
This is the Benro C – for carbon fiber – 373FBS8 video tripod – that’s a lot.
It comes with a bag.
Bags are always good especially when you're travelling and it has straps inside so you
can strap it down.
Video arm, nice with that blue Benro.
Holy heavy head, oh my God, I hope they don’t mind, I'm going to take this – I almost
was going to rip it but I'm not going to rip it.
This is a big, heavy tripod thus why it weighs 15 pounds.
Come on, there we go.
We need these video tripods for here in the studio for when we’re shooting raw talking,
when we’re doing all these different things.
Look at the size of the head on here.
You could put a RED camera on this if you really wanted.
There’s a bunch of different devices or things that you can do with here.
There’s the floating head control.
If you want it to be moved smoother or lighter you can turn these different dials.
You have – oh my God – there’s a 1, a 2, a 3 on the side of it.
You’ve got the video plate, look at the size of the video plate, press this button,
it pops out, and you’ve got a video plate right there.
Oh, it has that ABS brake smell, that anti-lock brake smell when you turn it on because it
stabilizes you.
All right, so this is this tripod.
I love the fact that they have – I don’t even know where it is yet or how it works
– where’s the button.
I don’t even know where the button is.
They have – oh my God, check this out – you press a button.
I don’t know if you could see it, let me move this out of the way.
You press a button and the level turns a light on inside.
Holy unbelievably wow.
There are so many different options on this thing.
I love the fact that I have to – love the fact – I have to figure out how – you
just turn this and it loosens this head.
So if it's standing up and you want to level it – and this is one of the issues I have
with some of the other tripods that I've been using – is that I can't find out how to
actually do this, like the leveling part.
When it's already set up and I'm like “Oh, it's tilted to the left” or “It's tilted
to the right” and I just want to make it move I can sit here and do this just by turning
this knob so boom, I'm going to lock that in.
So that is a big carbon fiber one.
I could imagine if this was the aluminum one it would be a lot heavier.
Oh yes, another thing, if you want to make it go Leggy McLegerson like this you just
pull on something like this.
So I was pretty pleased with the Benros when I played with them at Allen’s and that’s
why I called Benro and said “Hey, I want to play with some of your tripods” so that’s
why they sent it out.
And they also make this Monopod.
I have something very similar to this that Manfrotto made and I was not happy with it
because it never – it didn’t stabilize right.
I would press down – and now that I say that let’s see if it actually happens with
this – I would press down and it would collapse.
So you have these feet on the bottom.
So it works as a monopod with stability.
And you see how the disc moves right here and it allows you to tilt and move with it?
That is great for video.
So you’ve got this head right here, this is a fluid head as well.
Fluid means that it's fluid, it moves slowly.
Let me tighten this in right here.
That’s actually not how I would do it but you could see how it moves and it fluidly
moves and it's nice and stable so you’ve got that.
And you could see how it could stand up on its own.
So this was – and it has a video played up top here.
I'm going to use this with any of my cameras basically.
The problem I had was when I would press down like this with the Manfrotto it would slink
down on me.
This one isn’t doing it and I am putting – look at my arms – I am putting weight
on this thing so that one didn’t do it.
Let’s see if it does it here.
That one didn’t do it.
And there’s another one – holy – this gets really high.
It gets high.
And that one didn’t do it.
You probably won't see me all the way up here but you probably have a good look at my pants.
I am pressing down fully and it's not moving.
That is a win because I was so disappointed in the Manfrotto one that I had that I would
press down from the top even after tightening everything and it would just slip on me.
So when I was just out there shooting my video would just drop – not even the video, the
whole camera would drop in my hands because I was putting pressure on it.
I do not want that to happen.
So this is definitely something.
If you're getting into video this is a thing that I would carry around at all times.
One, you can beat somebody with it if you need to protect yourself; two, it's a great
thing to put your camera on so that you can get – I want to set this up right, there,
now it's set up right – so now you would put your DSO on top, you would sit there and
shoot the video, you can move forward like this to make it go this way or this way or
this way all the while doing this with a nice fluid motion.
You can even rotate this thing to the other side right here and that is probably where
I'm going to leave and you’ve got this thing too so you could rotate that way.
But it doesn’t have a bubble level that you can light up but it does have a bubble
level.
So that is the Benro – what model is this – A – for aluminum -- 48FBS4 video monopod.
I love it, it's going to stand like this, this big assed boy is probably in the $600
range.
This is just massive, we’re going to test it out, but this is what I'm really happy
with and you saw that I put all my stress and pressure on it, didn’t have an issue
whatsoever.
So Allen carries these.
I thank Benro for sending these out.
We’re going to run them through their paces.
Thank you, Postman Fro, for bringing them to my door.
And there you guys have it, Jared Polin FroKnowsPhoto.com.
See ya.