Excellent tutorial Mike!!! Now I have to play with all my equipment...I was having issues with my acratech head hitting the Pano head I have on - I bought the Benro geared head finally and didn't realize the knobs would interfere in the same way. Thanks to this video, I have a solution for both!
I just received My Benro GD3WH. In the position that you have your 3-way head pointing in the video, (Model number plate facing North, camera mounting plate knob facing South), I too had interference issues when I assembled all of my equipment. To alleviate the interference issues during rotation of the Nomad, I simply re-positioned the 3-way head such that the Model number plate now faces East, and the camera mounting plate knob now faces West. In other words, I rotated the tripod 90 degrees clockwise to what you demonstrate, the mounting plate of the Nomad, being a square, still allows for it to be mounted facing North. I have near the same range of motion with the "new" Altitude knob (-15 - +90 degrees) vs. (-30 - +90 degrees). I have yet to test this positioning of the 3-way head, but from what I can tell, I don't need any extensions of any sort to allow for unimpeded movement of the Nomad during it's rotation/tracking. Please advise if I am missing something here. Thanks Mike.
I theory, I suppose you could make that work if you can think sideways, remember what each knob will do for you and easily/successfully perform an alignment. I try to keep things as simple as possible, especially when photographing the night sky, because doing things in the dark is more difficult then doing them during daylight hours. With the normal setup, I know that the clamp knob should face me, and the declination knob and the rotating plate should both face Polaris. This makes setup much easier for me because there are fewer things to think about, and I won't get confused as to which knob performs which adjustment when I'm aligning the tracker. This also allows me to set up the tracker by feel, without using a light, which is important to me when I'm with a group of students and don't want to interrupt them by turning on my headlamp.
Mike, nice tutorial about NOMAD mounting options. Personally, I love the (Alyn Wallace designed) V plate option and connection to NOMAD for better overall camera balance on the tracker and overall weight distribution over long axis of the tripod. Low profile pano ball head on the upper “wing” of the V plate affords quite a lot of flexibility. I appreciate the Nomad Vixen plate as a good option for existing base owners (SkyGuider Pro base, William Optics High angle or Low angle bases, Skywatcher Star Adventurer base). However, with MSM’s new base design, as you have reviewed, I don’t think there is a better light weight base option for the backpacker!
Hi Blane, im a noob in all this. To cast away any abiguity, can you please tell me the order of your mounting setup? From what I understand, you have: Tripod > V-plate > Nomad > Ballhead > Camera?
Thank you for the excellent tutorial. You showed a couple of accessories and options I was not aware of. Another option you didn’t show was using MSM’s accessory V-Plate between the Nomad and ball head, which also avoids collisions and makes it easier to aim the camera at certain areas of the sky and also to take tracked panoramas, allowing the camera to pan horizontally. But using the extended Arca-Swiss mounting block would still be useful to get the V-Plate’s small lock knobs away from the Nomad to make them easier to get at. Thanks again!
Thanks for informative video. Question ... I have the Benro 3 way gearhead, and I bought a spacer because I was having the same clearance problem that you described with clearing my ballhead, but now I have the same problem that I had with the old MSM model, the weight of the camera will loosen the ballhead on the spacer and cause the camera to swing down because it doesn't have the Nomad teeth to hold it in position. How do you get around that?
The spacer has an allen screw on the plate that is designed to keep the ball head from slipping. The plate for the Nomad has a similar screw. It can be tightened with an allen key.
Awesome video, Mike! Acratech makes a nice spacer that I put under my Benro 3-way geared heads so they don't interfere with the wider mounting plate on my Feisol tripods.
Thanks. I have seen other spacers on the marked. I like the design of the Benro partly because it has an allen screw to use to keep things from slipping.
Excellent tutorial Mike!!! Now I have to play with all my equipment...I was having issues with my acratech head hitting the Pano head I have on - I bought the Benro geared head finally and didn't realize the knobs would interfere in the same way. Thanks to this video, I have a solution for both!
Thanks. I'm glad you found the video helpful.
I just received My Benro GD3WH. In the position that you have your 3-way head pointing in the video, (Model number plate facing North, camera mounting plate knob facing South), I too had interference issues when I assembled all of my equipment. To alleviate the interference issues during rotation of the Nomad, I simply re-positioned the 3-way head such that the Model number plate now faces East, and the camera mounting plate knob now faces West. In other words, I rotated the tripod 90 degrees clockwise to what you demonstrate, the mounting plate of the Nomad, being a square, still allows for it to be mounted facing North.
I have near the same range of motion with the "new" Altitude knob (-15 - +90 degrees) vs. (-30 - +90 degrees). I have yet to test this positioning of the 3-way head, but from what I can tell, I don't need any extensions of any sort to allow for unimpeded movement of the Nomad during it's rotation/tracking. Please advise if I am missing something here. Thanks Mike.
I theory, I suppose you could make that work if you can think sideways, remember what each knob will do for you and easily/successfully perform an alignment. I try to keep things as simple as possible, especially when photographing the night sky, because doing things in the dark is more difficult then doing them during daylight hours. With the normal setup, I know that the clamp knob should face me, and the declination knob and the rotating plate should both face Polaris. This makes setup much easier for me because there are fewer things to think about, and I won't get confused as to which knob performs which adjustment when I'm aligning the tracker. This also allows me to set up the tracker by feel, without using a light, which is important to me when I'm with a group of students and don't want to interrupt them by turning on my headlamp.
Mike, nice tutorial about NOMAD mounting options. Personally, I love the (Alyn Wallace designed) V plate option and connection to NOMAD for better overall camera balance on the tracker and overall weight distribution over long axis of the tripod. Low profile pano ball head on the upper “wing” of the V plate affords quite a lot of flexibility. I appreciate the Nomad Vixen plate as a good option for existing base owners (SkyGuider Pro base, William Optics High angle or Low angle bases, Skywatcher Star Adventurer base). However, with MSM’s new base design, as you have reviewed, I don’t think there is a better light weight base option for the backpacker!
Hi Blane, im a noob in all this. To cast away any abiguity, can you please tell me the order of your mounting setup?
From what I understand, you have: Tripod > V-plate > Nomad > Ballhead > Camera?
Thank you for the excellent tutorial. You showed a couple of accessories and options I was not aware of. Another option you didn’t show was using MSM’s accessory V-Plate between the Nomad and ball head, which also avoids collisions and makes it easier to aim the camera at certain areas of the sky and also to take tracked panoramas, allowing the camera to pan horizontally. But using the extended Arca-Swiss mounting block would still be useful to get the V-Plate’s small lock knobs away from the Nomad to make them easier to get at. Thanks again!
Thanks for watching. I'm glad you found the video helpful.
Thanks for informative video. Question ... I have the Benro 3 way gearhead, and I bought a spacer because I was having the same clearance problem that you described with clearing my ballhead, but now I have the same problem that I had with the old MSM model, the weight of the camera will loosen the ballhead on the spacer and cause the camera to swing down because it doesn't have the Nomad teeth to hold it in position. How do you get around that?
The spacer has an allen screw on the plate that is designed to keep the ball head from slipping. The plate for the Nomad has a similar screw. It can be tightened with an allen key.
@@MikePach3PeaksPhoto Thanks.
Awesome video, Mike! Acratech makes a nice spacer that I put under my Benro 3-way geared heads so they don't interfere with the wider mounting plate on my Feisol tripods.
Thanks. I have seen other spacers on the marked. I like the design of the Benro partly because it has an allen screw to use to keep things from slipping.