Moving stuff about in my bedroom & received 682B monopod

This morning I was going to go on my comp and have a quick look at the IE6 png transparency Alpha Filter & form elements problem, but decided that I might as well move my PC, subwoofer and UPS before switching the PC on.

I was planning to move the stuff around in my room yesterday, but didn't have the time. I moved the unit with a cupboard and a drawer to where the PC, subwoofer and UPS were, then put the UPS and subwoofer on top of that cupboard and the PC on my desk next to the monitor, where my tape deck was. I moved the tape deck to the other side of the monitor.

I took the 2 boxes of pog stuff (mainly pog games) that were underneath the shelf in the middle of my room and put them behind the cupboard/drawer unit. I also put the DJXII keyboard, Guitar Hero II and the white cardboard box or 12"s behind there.

After I'd moved those I thought I might as well finish off the moving stuff around job as I'd intended to do yesterday. I found there were some spare long Ikea shelves (just the shelf bits, not the legs) in the garage. So I took all the small ikea shelf bits down and moved the wide ikea shelf to where the small ones previously were (between the door and en-suite door). I reorganised some of the tubs of pog stuff so they took up less space.

In one of the pog boxes there were loads of plastic food bags, most of them I threw away but there were also lots of the bags with a seal at the top, so I kept all them. It was amaxing how many bags there, and shows how I must have bought totally loads of pogs when I bought lots of pogs.

In the cupboard part of the cupboard/drawer unit I put the box of 7"s and Soviet poster prints that were in there before. I also put in there all my books that were previously in a couple of piles near the door and in a white bread rolls box. In the drawer bit I put small random stuff that was lying in various places around the room: my tin of Roses; a Roses tin of odd small stuff; batteries; money pot/elastic bands; bottle of Melatonin; nose/ear hair trimmer; hole punch; small LED lantern; and a glass jar of pennies.

The folders of various stuff that were just on the floor by the shelves previously, I put in the wall cupboards on the shelves along with all the folders that were already in there.

The big box of padding/bubble wrap/jiffy bags/small cardboard boxes I threw away. I had to stand out in the cold wind peeling sellotape off the boxes and jiffy bags filled with shredded paper so they could go in the reycling bin. All the selotape and other jiffybags and bubble wrap I threw in the normal bin, which had just been emptied. I filled it up about half way. Doing this took quite a while and hands looked quite trashed after being out in the cold wind for so long so I took some photos of them when I got back inside.

By the time I finished moving everything round, tidying up and vaccuming it was about 3.30pm. I went in the garden and tested my new Manfrotto 682B Self standing monopod, which arrived today. I found that:

• It swayed around a bit in the wind, so won't be much good for outdoors HDR.
• On unlevel ground (tried it on the grass) it won't stand upright by itself. I read this thread at dpreview which suggests pushing on one of the legs with your foot to use it on uneven ground.
• It's quite big and heavy compared to my Manfrotto 676B monopod, though quite a bit lighter than my tripod.
• It wouldn't fit into the centre column hole of my tripod. Probably it would fit with the 678 removed, but then the pole would be too thin for the centre column grippy thing to grip.
  

I will probably test it out a bit more tomorrow.

After testing my new monopod I went on ebay and saw that the Lowepro 1N lens case that I was watching would be finishing soon, and it had gone up to (and ended at) £6.95 + £2.50 P&P. I checked ebay and froogle to see what the going price for Lowepro lens pouches is and it seems to be £10-£15, with digitalrev on ebay being the cheapest. Digitalrev website actually came out cheapest on froogle, but with P&P was more expensive than their ebay shop which was offering free P&P. I was surprised how much they cost, up until yesterday the 1N lens pouch I was watching on ebay was only 99p (with no bidders I think). So I guess that £31 for the belt with a few pouches that finished on ebay the other day was actually a good deal.

Then I googled to see what camera pouches are available that fit on the Lowepro belt. On the Lowepro website all the beltpacks are packs that have the belt built into them, not packs to fit onto an existing belt. It seems that what you need to look for is toploaders. The one I read that someone else uses in a dpreview thread was the Toploader Zoom AW. It looks like this is the biggest one they do, and so probably the most flexible. I had a look on ebay and froogle to see the cheapest price for it, and it seems to be £35 + P&P from Warehouse express. On ebay most people seemed to be selling it for about £50. That's a bit expensive, so I'll see if I can get a cheaper one from ebay for the moment.

At dinner time Maccy said that Moley from HFM had come into his work and talked to him! And then Ben said that someone in his class said that DJ Brain from HFM was his dad! HFM is everywhere!!

After dinner me, Ben and Maccy watched Iron man, but it didn't say 'I am Iron Man' in the computerised voice like it does in the trailer, and his voice wasn't even very computery sounding when he was in the suit.

After that I checked the Warehouse express forums, then HotUKdeals, then went to bed. My room is now a lot more roomy than it was before.

The weather today was sunny nearly all day with a bit of cloud around, though very windy (which made it cold). Made a nice change from the last couple of weeks (which has been overcast and rainy). I didn't get up until 8am, so I didn't see whether there was a visible sunrise, I'm guessing there was. There was a sunset, but it wasn't that great as there weren't any clouds around to be lit up by the sunset.

Food
Breakfast: Coco pops; orange juice.
Lunch: Grated mature cheddar cheese with babyleaf salad sandwich; satsuma; mince pie; chocolate digestive biscuit bar; cup o' tea.
Dinner: Ham quiche; peas; potatoes. Pudding was ginger sponge with golden syrup and vanilla sauce (like custard).
Supper: Choc chip chewy cereal bar; cup o' tea.

Self standing monopods and pole panos using monopods

This morning I checked my email, hotukdeals and then got granny her breakfast. After that I went on my comp and did a bit of work on my website. Then I went in the garden for a bit, and saw a small black snail (it looked like a small slug with a very small snail shell on its back) and a cranefly. I came back in and went on the pinternet, went on Flickr for a bit and then checked the panoguide thread about shooting panos in public places. TTurner posted to say that the Manfrotto 682B self standing monopod works okay as long as it's on a flat surface. That sounded quite good to me so I did some more research on the 682B and 678 Folding base.

It seems that with the 682B/679B/680B/681B the monopod is hollow at the base and there is a space that the 678 folding base is inserted into. For using the monopod as an extended centre column in a tripod it seems you need a rotator (like the Manfrotto 300N) that is screwed on top of the normal centre column (or a monopod that is replacing the centre column). Then you need to get an adapter made with a thread that inserts in the bottom of the monopod. The bottom of the monopod then screws onto the rotator, so you can rotate the whole monopod. It was also interesting to see how Hans Nyberg was using a light boom adapter with his monopod setup in it to take offset panos (useful for taking panos over the edge of cliffs, bridges etc).

After that I decided to see whether it would be possible to do a pole pano using my existing tripod (Benro C-428) and monopod (Manfrotto 676B). First off I tried to find a way to mount the pano head to the bottom of the monopod (intending to use monopod upside down so the top is near the ground and the bottom up in the air). The 676B doesn't have way to remove the rubber foot at the bottom or to screw anything into the bottom. First I tried clipping the large clip from the Wimberley Plamp to the rubber foot, then to that I clamped the Manfrotto 035 Superclamp. I had to do it this way instead of clamping the superclamp directly to the monopod because if I did that the 1/4" screw thread would have been on the side of the monopod rather than on top. Then I tried screwing the Nodal Ninja offset camera plate onto the superclamp, to try and get it so the screwthread to mount the pano head on was over the end of the monopod (to eliminate parallax errors when rotating the monopod). Unfortunately the offset camera plate wasn't long enough to get the screwthread over the rubber foot of the monopod, and it didn't feel that stable either.

So instead I tried just attaching a chinese Gorillapod SLR Zoom knock off on the end of the monopod, and this worked fine. Next I needed to find a way to attach the monopod to the tripod. I tried inserting the monopod into the tripod instead of the centre column, but the clips for the sections on the bottom and the plastic bit at the top were too big to get the monopod into the centre column hole.

So I decided that I would have to find something that would let me screw the male thread of the monopod together with the male thread on the tripod. I got the box of nuts and bolts from the garage and found a 3/8" nut and a 1/4" nut that I could part screw the monopod into and part screw the tripod into.

I needed a ballhead on the bottom to act as a rotator, I tried my FLM Centerball 18 ballhead, but that was no good as it only rotates when the ball isn't locked. So that meant I would have to use my Markins M10 head, which requires a quick release plate. Then I realised that actually I could take the screw out of the QR plate and screw the monopod into the top of the QR plate, so I did that and took it out to the garden for a test drive.


Pole pano test setup
Originally uploaded by djeyewater

When I extended the monopod to its' maximum height, it seemed to bend over quite a bit as the sections are quite loose fitting and so each section bends over slightly at an angle. However, now looking at the photo I took and straightening it in photoshop, the problem doesn't look quite so bad. I think that really I needed to level the tripod first, levelling the setup on the ballhead won't do any good because you have to rotate the ballhead (unless you just twisted the whole setup round on the ball rather than rotating the whole ballhead).

After dinner I watched Lost with Maccy and Ben, then me and Mac started watching a Korean martial arts film. Partway through Autumn watch started, so I went and watched that instead. When Autumn watch finished I went on the pinternet to check into the price of the Manfrotto 679-682 models. It seems that the 682 is actually equivalent to the 681+679, and actually works out cheaper.
The below comparison table is using data gathered from the warehouse express website:

Model	682B	681	680	679B	678
Weight (g)	1150	800	830	600	420
In-built head type	None	None	60mm	None
Max load (g)	12000	12000	10000	10000
Min height	69.0 cm	67.0 cm	51cm	64.0 cm
Max height	172.0 cm	161.0 cm	154cm	156.0 cm
Leg sections	3	3	4	3
Price	£62.95	£35.99	£34.99	£29.99	£34.95

After checking that I did a check to see if the 681(B) or 678 can be bought cheaper elsewhere. They can, but only by a couple of quid so still not as cheap as the 682B. Next I checked what the cheapest price for the 682 was, a couple of places have it for a quid or two cheaper (£62 @ www.collegecameras.co.uk, £61 @ www.devoncamera.co.uk). Then for all those you need to add £8 P&P on. I think for the sake of a couple of quid I would rather order from WEX since I already have an account with them and have ordered stuff from them with no problems before.

Food
Breakfast: Crunchy nut cornflakes; orange juice.
Lunch: 2x cheese on toasts; lettuce; cherry tomatoes; apple; double take (fake kitkat); cup o' tea.
Dinner: Slice of cheese & tomato pizza; slice of pepperoni pizza; mixed veg; chips. Pudding was small apple pie warmed in the oven with custard. Coffee; Roses.
Supper: Choc chip cookie; milk chocolate digestive; hot chocolate.