its a Vanguard Alta Pro 263 AT with a Vanguard SBH100. holds that 150-500mm os lens a treat! its great and well priced for what you get if you compare like for like with Manfrotto and Giotto's. only thing i wish i had done was spend a bit more on a carbon one coz its a heavy bastad i tend to use a remote shutter when the situation allows to get blur free pics. but picking a tri-pod that will carry the wieght of your camera (and possible equiptment you are going to buy in the future) is a big part of it. the kit i was going to buy had SBH-30 ball head and it wouldnt have dealt with the wieght i was going to ask it to so upgraded the head. hope that helps bud.
As of yet no I haven't, have had some bad news since I posted this, as in I have no job from friday so I have put it on the back burner for now. Although I have found reading this a great help in the fact that I defo want a tripod and not the monopod. Also it shows that you get what you pay for and the cheapo ones although great to start with will need replacing with time. I was looking at this one here my local camera shop are doing them for 40quid
I used to have a Hama tripod and it wasn't bad at all. I can't get the link to work, so does that mean you have to buy a head, as well? Don't dismiss getting a remote for your camera. You can find them cheaply on eBay/made in China for <20 (Nikon make costs about 80). More convenient than using timer delay. Sorry to hear about your job. I was in the same position in the summer and it's not fun. Hope you soon find another.
Link fixed sorry, no stella comes with a head, I have found it on the internet for around 25quid now. When I tried it out a couple weeks ago I found it to be quite a nice one, not to heavy to carry but didn't move around with the camera in place. I already have a remote for the camera, just a cheapo one for now from ebay hehehe! and thanks for the support, there is no good time to get told you have no job, but a month before xmas is going to make it hard to find a new job till mid february now and the industry I work in (am an artworker/retoucher) is having a hard time at the mo. But on the flip side will have plenty of time to get some pictures ha!
You're heading in the right direction though - find out if your camera has a 'mirror-up' mode. This is only suitable for shooting static subjects, but could be used to good effect with the self-timer as it pre-releases the Mirror (source of most camera vibration) so that at the moment of the exposure, the only moving parts are the lens aperture blades and the shutter blades. HTH.
