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Drove 90 minutes to a dark sky site near Joshua Tree and my tripod leg gave out during a 4 minute exposure
Last Saturday I packed up my gear and drove out to a spot near Joshua Tree because the forecast showed clear skies and no moon until 2am. I had my rig all set up around 10pm, polar aligned, and started a 4 minute sub on the Andromeda galaxy. About halfway through I heard this small click and the whole thing shifted maybe a quarter inch. One of the leg locks on my tripod had been slowly slipping all night and I never noticed because the ground was soft sand. Every frame after that had star trails and I lost about two hours of good data. I ended up stacking just the first three subs, which gave me a noisy mess with way less detail than I wanted. I taped the leg with duct tape from my car just to finish the night, but honestly the damage was done. Next time I'm bringing a small piece of plywood to put under each leg so they don't sink. Has anyone else had a leg lock fail on them mid session, and did you just replace the tripod or try to fix the lock?
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jenniferblack27d ago
My buddy Dave had this exact thing happen at the Alabama Hills last spring with a Manfrotto he'd owned for like 8 years. The leg lock on the front left side started slipping, and he didn't catch it until he noticed his stars looked like little dashes instead of dots in about 40 frames. He tightened the lock screw but the plastic inside was worn down so it kept happening. He ended up taking the whole leg apart in his tent the next morning and found a cracked clamp piece, which is a common thing on those older models from what he told me. He tried to fix it with some epoxy and it held for maybe two more trips before it gave out again. In the end he just bought a new tripod because the cost of the replacement part plus shipping was almost half of what a new one cost. So yeah, if the lock is already slipping there's a good chance the clamp is cracked or the plastic is shot, and fixing it might just be a short term thing.
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