Mounting advice Helios Apollo 22x85?

[catburglar]

I have one of these.......http://www.amazon.co.uk/AmazonBasics-Tripod-Pistol-Inches-Adjustable/dp/B00CF1LS94/ref=sr_1_8?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1444931818&sr=1-8&keywords=ravelli

Any thought if this is upto holding a helios apollo 22x85 bins

[Star Struck]

From a weight perspective, I reckon you will be pushing your luck.

The Apollo 22x85 binocluars weight 4.8 kg = 10.56 lbs.

The amazon advert says the tripod/head will support 11 lbs.

You may need to look at a more sturdy combination e.g. Manfrotto

[Damo636]

The tripod would probably suffice, the head, no chance! I've owned that binocular and its needs a fairly decent tripod head to support it properly. Although a parallelogram mount would be the ideal solution, I found the Manfrotto 502ah a good match for it.

[spike95609]

The tripod should be enough to hold it up but yes you'd need to look for a different head. Most tripods are designed to be used with the camera on the level, when everything is square and balanced, but once you tilt those 5kg binoculars back to look at anything high in the sky, you'll radically alter the centre of balance and put massive strain on the head. Pretty much everyone who buys large bins, including me, tries to get away with a cheap tripod to keep the costs down. But it really is a false economy as a cheap mount that cannot hold the binoculars rock solid makes observing something of a chore as you're constantly having to fight the mount to get it into position and keep it there, and getting chronic neck ache at the same time. In the end I spent £350 on a Manfrotto 475b tripod and 502AH head, and I don't regret a penny as it's a joy to use, no wrestling required at all.

[catburglar]

Thought I was being a bit optimistic, thank you all. Clearly I need to rethink my mounting options.

[BinocularSky]

I'm playing with that tripod at the moment; I've tried my old Virgo Astronomics (as near as dammit identical to the Orion Paragon) parallelogram on it; OK with lightweight binocs, but the parallelogram won't hold the 22x85. To mount that, you really need something like the UA T-mount (or a fluid head like the old 501); Nice as it is (especially for the price!), I don't think the Ravelli tripod is up to either. I haven't tried these on the Ravelli, but I have tried the T-mount on my Manfrotto 475 with the Miyauchis - nearly a kilogram more than the 22x85; it's usable, but only just.

The other thing about the Ravelli tripod is that the centre-column isn't geared so, unless you were using a parallelogram (or something else that raised the binocular for higher altitude targets), it would be darned difficult to use with heavy binos.

(all IMHO, of course)

[BinocularSky]

But it really is a false economy as a cheap mount that cannot hold the binoculars rock solid makes observing something of a chore as you're constantly having to fight the mount to get it into position and keep it there, and getting chronic neck ache at the same time.

Amen to that! It really does strike me as being royally daft to spend good money on a decent bit of optical kit, then doing one's utmost to nullify all its advantages by plonking it on some woefully insubstantial monument to inadequacy.