Three Tiny Feet

Our recent Cullmann shipment yielded several interesting bits.


 The new Flexx kits are going to need careful study - and by that I mean I get to play with them - to sort out what exactly the components do for macro photography. Cullmann gear has always been like this - if you ever encountered their camera stability kits from the 1970's and 80's you know what I mean - you were confronted with a wealth of clamps, screws, and articulated arms with bright coded colours and you generally ended up using something out of the kit in a strange way. It did the job perfectly but you were never certain whether that was what the company designed it for. You suspected that the wholesale representative might reel back in horror with a muttered " Donnerwetter" should you ever show off your rig.

I have decided to start on the easy one - the Cullmann Copter. It is a tabletop tripod with style. The legs are 15cm long and are pressure-cast in a trough shape. This means that it is light and stiff. There is a substantial rubber foot at the end of each leg. The ball head at the top of the tripod is the CB2 with the reversible plate; you can unscrew it and pop it on upside down to reveal a standard flash shoe.

This means you can choose to mount a small to medium camera on the 1/4" screw or put a flash on for off-camera work. If you need to break it down further you can unscrew toe CB2. One final neat feature is the shape of the legs - the trough - means that when you collapse them together and put a rubber band or bit of gaffer tape round them, you can pop it onto a standard 1/2' spigot on a light stand.

Plus, being metal and all, it makes a rather stylish kongo. Whatever that might be.