Tripod stability

[armand]

I also have the 1541T.  I use this with an RRS BH25 head when I want something super light and compact. 

I have actually used this with my 5DmkII with 70-200.  Everything stated already is a must.  However, I have also found one more trick.

I use an RRS bar and clamp from my panoramic rig on the ball head in order to shift the camera backwards.  This lets me balance the weight over the center of the tripod.  This has always made a huge difference for me. 

The 1541 is surprisingly solid for its size compared to whats out there. 

 

I was thinking about buying a pano rig from RRS anyway so I might try this one.
It's funny how relative things are. If I wanted something "super light and compact" I get the Sirui 025x

[Michael Erlewine]

Not clear what type of photography you are doing, but if you are not shooting action shots, then consider more stable heads. For landscape, still, and close-up photography I now use the Swiss-Arca C1 Cube geared-head, which is much more stable than my RRS ball heads. I never use anything else. For action shots I use a heavy gimbal or the larger RRS ball head.

[BernardLanguillier]

In that venue, how about giving up on the tripod all together and use a sandbag on top of the wall instead?

If you need a tripod for whatever reason, I would advise the following:
- Keep 2 legs short and lay them on top of the wall, possibly with a low angle,
- Hang a pack from the hook (you need a hook of course), make sure the pack touches slightly the ground of the side wall to prevent it from generating additional oscillations.

On top of that, you may want to consider the following too:
- Check for critical sharpness on the spot and increase ISO to reach higher shutter speeds in case you can't get something tack sharp at base ISO,
- Think of using a wider aperture for higher shutter speed and use DoF stacking to regain the DoF you couldn't achieve in one shot.

Cheers,
Bernard

[dwswager]

I was thinking about buying a pano rig from RRS anyway so I might try this one.
It's funny how relative things are. If I wanted something "super light and compact" I get the Sirui 025x

Got that right.  My light tripod is an RRS 34L at about 5lbs.  Considering my previous tripod was almost 9lbs, it actually is light. 

[MarkL]

I've handled this problem much more simply.  After I set the self timer, i just press down on the tripod head with a force much greater than what the weight of my pack would be.  I get sharp pictures.   And I've never seen any impact of my pulse or me moving on the images.  Test it on a calm day with and without hands and see if you can see any difference in your files.  I couldn't.  I can't vouch for how well this works on really long exposures, but for what I normally do....down to maybe 3-4 seconds, it works.
Brad

I think Lloyd Chambers did some testing on this with good results with tripods of reasonable heft.

[Ellis Vener]

"Taking the hood off might have helped. The 24-120 F4 is not small but is quite chubby, no place for a tripod collar."

As well as using ballast hanging from the tripod  another thing I've tried recently to add stability in windy situations is to mount the camera  to the tripod head using the Really Right Stuff CB-10 with an FAS clamp for the body and the CB-YS: Long Lens Support (http://www.reallyrightstuff.com/Shop/Long-Lens-Support-Packages/CB-YS-Long-Lens-Support.html) to support the barrel of the lens. I've tried this with the 24-120mm f/4G ED VR. No sure if it adds much stability but it seems to help.

[armand]

Thank you for all the suggestions, some might work for me and I hope others will benefit from this topic also.