Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This 12 foot tripod arrived in good condition, and required a little bit of assembly as it came in two, really big, cardboard boxes. One of the boxes was 6 or 7 feet tall, and another box about half that size. Prior to shipping, someone had used strapping tape to bind them together, nice and firmly.
When I opened the boxes up, and took them apart to get at their contents, all the parts were there, and the pipes appear to be anodized because they are all electro-coated with potblack. The nuts and bolts also had a pleasing black finish on them. There are a few T-couplings made of a bakelite plastic or acrylic material. And in there somewhere was a little plastic bag full of nuts and bolts that must have weighed 2 or 3 pounds alone. Be careful opening these boxes up, as losing that little bag of nuts and bolts might spell disaster when it comes time to assembling it.
As for the sidearm bars, or pipes, to be more accurate, they are roughly 2 inches in diameter, and I had to wander around in my house for a room that had a ceiling high enough to put the thing together. The instruction manual says you should open the lower tripod as wide as possible.Although I actually had a room with an 11 foot ceiling, I wasn't able, technically, to comply with the instruction sheet because my ceiling wasn't high enough - the base of the tripod needs to be opened as wide as possible, before you assemble it. I guess I didn't understand how tall 12 feet is, until I actually put it together. But I think I did the job well enough.
This tripod is really tall. So far as I can tell, it's big enough for putting next to an outdoor concert stage, and still be tall enough to tower over your performers, so you can shine light down on them from above.
And it is more useful than that, as there are times you need to shoot a home video, and the PAR lights have to be positioned directly above your talent, and shine down on them from above. This tripod is exactly what you need for hanging a few PARs from above, and bathing your actors in the light you want. (You probably will want to get some 'C' clamps for hanging PAR lights from the arms, but if you go to a hardware store like Home Depot, there are galvanized fence post couplings that fit over the pipes, and that works for me.)
There was just one minor modification I had to make, and that was enlarging the safety hole on the vertical shaft of the upper part of the tripod. There is a "security pin" that is about 2 inches long and 1/4 inch thick, and it is supposed to go through the outer shaft, and go straight through the lower part of the inner shaft, but the bore size on the outer pipe was a little bit too small. What, a little bit too small? Well, I fixed that by using a Dremel and a cutting wheel. Now the security pin slides all the way through, and fits perfectly.
I am greatly pleased with this fine twelve foot tall tripod. My only mistake was getting just one. I'm going to buy another one.
UPDATE: I bought a second one, and I guess the box must have fallen apart in shipping, again! This time, they didn't bother to stuff the extra stuff in a second box, and stuffed it back in the original box. (The Fed Ex man warned me the thing had come apart in transit, and I told him I didn't mind, as most of it looked like it had arrived.) Okay, what next? I took to assembling it. This is not necessarily an intuitive sort of thing, but you will get the hang of it, so long as you keep buying these things. At least the 1 page assembly sheet was there. In fact, you might be better off disassembling a couple of the things, as they may have arrived screwed together in the wrong order. So, anyway, taking a basic inventory to see if everything is there, is always a good idea. Yep, everything was already there. The little black bolts & nuts were all there; they come in a little plastic bag that measures about 4 inches by six inches. Even if they weren't, those things are easy to replace. It is going to be a very good idea, opening up the lower half of the tripod and spreading its legs apart, before inserting the upper length of the tripod. You really do need a 12 foot ceiling, so I did the assembling outside. I checked for the security hole, and it was drilled at the wrong bore size, just like the previous one I'd bought. But that's okay, I can modify the bore size with a dremel, just like before.
All in all, I think it's a fine tripod. Very tall. Just right for hanging 12 foot green screen blankets from.
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