A Ninja Photographer - Rich Harrington Talks Tripods in Dubai

"A while back we had a cool product on the Photofocus website. The folks over at Platypod made a small little portable plate that you could put a ball head on. Well actually Scott [Bourne], they have come back with a bigger version that they are going to be releasing for sale on June 1st. I have actually got a prototype in my hand, it’s called the Platypod Max and it is essentially a base plate that you attach your regular ball head to so you get all the stability off the top part of your tripod, you just bring your own ball head off your tripod, but now you can set this on the ground for low angles.

Levi Sim, one of our writers, has played with it and put it on trees, rocks, stumps, top of a sign, garbage can, doesn’t matter. I have used it in lots of places, I took it all around Dubai with me where a tripod would have gotten in trouble. I was in the bridge khalifa, there I am shooting a busy mall and I just found a ledge, set it down- no grief. I am up at the top, shooting through windows, shooting down- no grief. You bring a large full size tripod and everyone notices you. You have a small little base plate like this and no big deal.

So we will have a link and a review on the Photofocus website here so you can take a look at that and hear some creative stories of how to use it. But the Platypod Max is another solution that I like and I just keep it in my camera bag because it weighs about half a pound, it is a thin metal plate that is easy to attach to a ball head. So I always believe in bringing all three of those, I like my tripod, I will take my monopod for when I need to compromise, and I will bring a plate so I will always have stability. I do a lot of of things like time lapse and HDR and having that stable platform is a must for my type of photography." Richard Harrington of Photofocus

The above is transcribed from The Q & A Show by Photofocus. Listen to it below: