Monopod for canon 7D + 500mm f4

[Samrat Sarkar]

Please suggest a monopod and head for my 7D body and 500mm f4 within 10-12K.

Samrat Sarkar

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

I guess one of Manfrotto's should do okay. Personally, for that kind of equipment I would give more thought to a sturdy tripod and gimbal head combo, or a bean bag if you intend to shoot from a vehicle.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

If you are shooting from a vehicle then using a tripod would not be possible. So the best option would be to have a monopod plus gimbal.

Best option would be a monopod plus Wimberly WH-200 gimbal. However that would be way beyond your budget.
The next option is monopod and a cheaper Benro gimbal which is a clone of wimberly. However, I haven't used that so I can't vouch about how good or bad it is.

Within 10-12000 rupees you can only get Manfrotto monopod plus a ball head with quick release. The manfrotto monopods are not costly. Cost increases if you buy carbon fibre monopod.
The ball head can be fine for Sigma zoom lens but not the longer 500mm prime lenses.

The value of these things doesn't go down. So better to adopt the strategy of "buy once, cry once" ie buy a good thing once.

[Samrat Sarkar]

First of all thank you for your valuable suggestions. I managed to buy the canon 500mm f4 lens somehow. But if my camera stand, whatever it is, monopod or tripod or something else, does not help me to get a respectable result out of my 500mm lens all my future spending in it will go down.

So, Sabyasachida, in case i increase my budget by a few thousand can you please give me some fresh suggestions? please keep in mind that i have a soft corner for monopods in my mind .

Samrat Sarkar

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Samrat,
Good to know that you have bought a Canon 500mm f4.

You can buy a manfrotto monopod plus this manfrotto 393 gimbal (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...ty_Gimbal.html). You need to check with manfrotto india or a local dealer. I am giving links to B&H in US so that you can get idea about the details of the products. In India the manfrotto 393 head costs 12,857/- (http://www.amazon.in/Manfrotto-393-H...=Manfrotto+393 )

The above would be perhaps the cheapest option.

An expensive one, which I have, is the Wimberly WH200. That would be a lot costlier. There are cheaper Benro gimbals, knock offs of Wimberly design, which costs about 25-30k in India. The Wimberly WH200 costs 595 USD. In India it costs about 57k.