Manfrotto X Benro…

Well, for this week, seems I won't be posting about images specifically, but I remembered that in one of my previous posts I've mentioned that I might put a review and a comparison between two macro rails that I have already, and probably it is time to do this review. So, this post might be short (I don't have the content planned already before typing the post so I can't quite tell the length of the post ahead).

Now before I go ahead with the review, I have to say that this item is discontinued already and I'm sure the web is full of reviews for such item, so this review is mainly about my impression since I did have a rail before this one. Since I've used 2 different types of macro-heads here, I thought I'd write something about it here.

Benro MP80

First of all, I guess I'd need to list my reasons for why did I think of buying a new macro-head since i do have one already. My reasons might be summarized in two main ones:

• The need to play with a new toy (for a change as I didn't get any new gear in a long time).
• The need for a more stable macro-head than my old Manfrotto MA 454.

 

Manfrotto MA 454

Now, the main thing that I didn't quite like in the Manfrotto head is the shaky movement of the rail and sometimes it's hard to judge the movement's distance from the scale on the side. Also, there is not much fine-tuning for the movement so one has to be quite picky when moving these knobs to move small distances in order of millimeters or less than that. I can't remember the price tag for this head really since I got it a long time ago (and ordered from outside). I have to say though, after using Benro MP80, I'm now quite aware that such a simple design for Manfrotto was for a reason, and I appreciate it.

Benro MP80

As for the Benro MP80, the matter was somewhat strange and perplexing even before buying the item. I've purchased this macro-head from a local store specialized in photography gear (and few units were left in the stock). The price tag was almost 20K.D. (around 65 USD). The head was apparently out of stock in many websites, but what I was surprised for is the price tag for such a head in other stores outside the country. Like this one here which offered a used one for almost 200 USD, which is like 3 times the price I had it for from the local store! Or like this store in the UK which offered it for £210, which is just a bit shy from being 4 times the price I got from the local store! There are even a number of websites that offered it for almost 300 USD. I've even found it in Alibaba which offered the price directly converted to K.D. and it was for 92 K.D.! It was such a strange thing to have it for 20 K.D. (and I'm not complaining really but it's just strange!).

Schematics of operating the head

Unlike the Manfrotto head, Benro's head has lot of knobs and it is also advertised as a "panorama" head in some websites. This is because of its circular base with scale for degrees of rotation as it can be seen from the picture above. As a panorama shooter myself, I know this is not enough but it is, let's say, fair. What I was thinking actually is that such rotating base can be used as a turning table of some sort to take pictures of products or to do my favorite "peeling" effect when needed, but I have my doubts about the usability of such feature in such task despite the easiness of rotating this circular base compared to the base of my old cranky and bulky panorama head base. Anyway, that's a story for another time and yet I have to test it.
As can be seen from the schematics, the head is quite flexible when it comes to movement and probably the most useful feature here (which Manfrotto miserably lack) is the lateral movement capability. Yet, things are not all sweet about this head.

Vexing Points:

Despite the lateral movement (which I do like, really) which would be quite beneficial for doing 3D anaglyphs work on macro level (or even in normal settings), yet there are issues that I couldn't digest well and made me think of it as lost money (but hey, still cheap compared to other places and I'm grateful for that). I'll try put things in points here:

1. The circular base is simply bulky and means that to work in macro, I can only place the camera horizontally, unlike the Manfrotto head which I could place on a ball-head or any other head to direct the camera in specific angle. It can be cumbersome indeed with the Manfrotto head, yet it gives a degree of flexibility. I'm aware that most macro rails (specially serious ones) do work that way, and just move the camera on a horizontal plane, but that definitely pushes one to work more on preparing the sample and to angle it in a proper way in front of the camera (and automatically, this means it is suitable only for indoors work only, mostly).
2. Benro's head here is supposed to take a load up to 12 kg (~26.5 lb) according to the websites I've fund, but with such heavy load on the moving plate, it becomes harder and harder to move the knobs (specially #3 in the schematic diagram above, which is responsible for moving the camera back- and frontward). I'm pretty sure when I worked with it, my camera and lens complex was around 1 kg (that is 1/12th of the announced load), give or take. Still, moving the camera frontward and backward was a hard and clunky, specially with such a small knob which comes under the camera body making it harder to hold with the fingers and rotate softly or precisely.
3. Because the plate that carries the camera is serrated at the bottom and moved by gears when rotating the knob, the movement becomes not so smooth specially with more heavy loads, so much that it felt as if the camera is passing over tiny bumps as it goes forward or backward. In Manfrotto's rail, the movement is done by a helical (screw-like) road at the center which pushes the camera forward or pull it backward.

Honestly, as for the second point, Manfrotto suffers from that as well somehow but it is such a big deal with Benro's macro-head here. In Manfrotto's macro rail, the rotating knob has a hexagonal opening which makes it suitable for placing some Allen key and use it to rotate slowly and probably more precisely (a bit), but none of that is available with the knobs on Benro's MP80 macro-head and one has to use the fingers solely to rotate it.

 

So far, I've gave out simple trials to shoot with Benro's head (some leaf as seen above at various magnification levels, using reverse lens and tubes). This leaves me with the rotating base to see how suitable it would be for shooting product (or rather peeling objects). It rotates smoothly, more than that of my old panorama head but maybe I would still need to put it on some kind of tripod to hold the base firmly as I rotate the head, and not put it simply on a table. Working on a table with such an item would be a plus for me specifically to use the light tent that I've received as a gift from a friend last year. The light tent (or box) solves a big deal of problems when it comes to the background for shooting such objects, so it would be a nice addition to work with a smooth rotating head inside that light box.

Finale

So, this is my humble experience with this head and a comparison to the previous macro rail from Manfrotto, which I had for years (and I guess I'll keep using). There are of course more advanced macro rails and heads, and some are even programmable for serious photographers who wish to do serious focus-stacking, but I think this is not for me as of yet. 

 

Meanwhile, I've already started strolling outside, since January, and been shooting around the neighborhood, trying to find new stuff around, mainly using my Sigma 12-24mm lens, and I have to say it is quite a challenge, specially when done with the normal camera and not the modified one, so to increase my chances for a creative juice flowing, I've decided to shoot bracketed most of the time and work with HDR images most of the time (i didn't work in HDR for a long time now). I allowed myself to go crazy a bit with tone-mapping, but that's a story for another time, hopefully as a post in here in the coming weeks, if time permits. 

 

I say as time permits here as my life had been suddenly busy with some blockade to ideas with the camera. Well, the blockade has been there already but it is more now, specifically with the absence of a maid to take care of many things around the house, which I find myself doing to help around. 

On the other hand, it is also February, the Retinitis Pigmentosa Awareness Month! Which means I have to get busy working on something for the month and to be posted on Instagram as well, and so far my head had been blank and out of ideas. There had been humble trials for brainstorming but nothing was yielded still. I just hope that I get the idea(s) clicking in as soon as possible.

For this reason, I'm thinking of maybe keeping out from blogging for some time, but I'm not sure about that. Anyway, I will leave it to time and I'll see to it in 2 weeks time for now. I'm also planning to put this review in Arabic for my Arabic blog, since I didn't post for months now (again, breaking my resolution of posting once a month at least). So this might take another toll on my time as well. 

Would all that "keeping busy" be just enough to keep my mind from wandering away and swirl into depression as usual? We'll see…