Manfrotto 190X Aluminium 3 Section Tripod

Product Information

Tongue-and-groove One side and one end of the plank have a groove, the other side and end have a tongue (protruding wood along an edge’s center). The tongue and groove fit snugly together, thus joining or aligning the planks, and are not visible once joined. Prime oak 190 x Tongue-and-groove flooring can be installed by glue-down (both engineered and solid), floating (engineered only), or nail-down (both solid and engineered). The 190X features Premium Italian Design with bold clean shapes and lines dictated by function, making it outstandingly stylish and recognisable. Oiled – Oiled floors have existed for several thousand years and is the most common floor finish used globally. Oils used for floor finishing are natural drying oils of vegetable origin that are not to be confused with petroleum based oils and contain no VOCs. Pre-finished oil floors can be UV cured. The 190XPROB is part of Manfrotto’s X family, designed for general-purpose use indoors and out. There are no fewer than 12 models in the current X family, divided equally between the 190 and 055 ranges. Fully understanding Manfrotto’s model numbers and knowing their capabilities is the key behind making the right choice; here’s a brief guide. Today Manfrotto is one of the best-known and respected names in tripods, but how did it all begin, and why do some people know the products under the Bogen brand? The Manfrotto story starts in the late 1960s with Lino Manfrotto, a photo reporter based in Bassano del Grappa, Northern Italy. Manfrotto found much of the studio equipment of the day cumbersome and neglected to include basic stands and clamps. Spotting a gap in the market, Manfrotto produced a lighting stand, but only made a few units for friends.

For a near to perfect floor with minimal knots, our prime grade oiled product is the way to go. Due to the thinner planks, the price is a lot cheaper but still presents the highest quality in the floor. Plank Width Prior to this time, Manfrotto tripods were often sold under the Bogen name in certain regions – for example the 190XPROB and 055XPROB were commonly known as the Bogen 3001BPRO and 3021BPRO respectively in America. Today the same Manfrotto name and model numbers are now used worldwide, although both it and ‘rival’ Gitzo remain part of the same Vitec group. Guide to Manfrotto’s X family By simply attaching an arm with an LED light, a reflector, or any other accessory, the new 190X goes beyond the boundaries of classic tripod functionalities. Given a typical head weighs between 0.5 and 1Kg (with only the heftiest models coming in any heavier), you can easily work out what you’ll have remaining for your camera and lens. Typical entry-level to mid-range DSLR bodies weigh between 500 and 700g with battery. Typical semi-pro DSLR bodies with battery (but no battery grip) generally weigh around 900g, while top-end pro DSLRs with built-in grips rarely weigh much more than 1.2Kg.

Manfrotto 190XPROB Real-life tests

Oil – Oiled floors have existed for several thousand years and is the most common floor finish used globally. Oils used for floor finishing are natural drying oils of vegetable origin that are not to be confused with petroleum based oils and contain no VOCs. Pre-finished oil floors can be UV cured. Lacquered – Lacquered floors tend to be more durable and resilient to scratching, the lacquer provides a flat and smooth finish to the wood flooring. As noted earlier, on previous generations the 055 series was also comfortably taller than the 190 series, both in terms of maximum height and folded-down length. But with this latest MT series, the MT190 range has grown to virtually match the size of the MT055. Again the MT055 models are heavier to accommodate the extra load, but in terms of maximum height with or without the column raised, or their carrying size when folded-down, there’s little to choose between them. It really is mostly a case of choosing whether you need that extra 2kg of load capacity and if you’re willing to carry around the additional half kilo or extra pound for the more substantial build. For the lens we once again opted for a popular focal length of 70-300mm, although due to availability the model used was the less common Canon EF 70-300mm DO. When fully zoomed-in and mounted on a cropped-frame body like the 550D / T2i, this lens delivered an effective focal length of 480mm. The Movie Crop function then effectively multiplied this by a further 7.2 times, delivering a final focal length equivalent to a massive 3456mm; in binocular or telescopic terms, that’s about 70x ‘normal’ (50mm) magnification. So while the total load itself was a fairly modest 1.25Kg (or just under 2.1Kg including the head), the chance to test each tripod at such a large and demanding effective focal length was one we felt had the overall edge. And once again while the Canon 550D / T2i isn’t a heavy body, it is representative of the DSLRs in most common use.

In 1972, Manfrotto met Gilberto Battocchio, a mechanical engineer who helped him render his ideas and requirements into actual products, and in 1974, the first commercial Manfrotto tripod was launched. Over the next decade and a half the company grew significantly with manufacturing remaining in Italy. In 1989, the entire Lino Manfrotto shareholding was bought by the British Vitec group with Lino and Gilberto remaining in the Management team. We’ll be the first to admit it’s not the perfect tripod test, but as you’ll see, it still revealed some interesting and useful results. Manfrotto 190XPROB Vibration results Clearly if you’re tall, the extra foot or so of the 055 tripods will mean less stooping when composing, while shorter photographers will appreciate the stability of a tripod which simply doesn’t need to raise its centre column to meet their eye-level Tongue-and-groove flooring can be installed by glue-down (both engineered and solid), floating (engineered only), or nail-down (both solid and engineered). The increased stability of engineered wood is achieved by running each layer at a 90° angle to the layer above. This stability makes it a universal product that can be installed over all types of subfloors above, below or on grade. Engineered wood is the most common type of wood flooring in Europe and has been growing in popularity in North America Tongue And GrooveWithout building a dedicated rig to wobble or tap each tripod by the same amount every time, there’s no way to scientifically measure the exact damping capabilities of each model, but we devised a simple manual process which proved to be both revealing and sufficiently consistent for fair comparisons to be made. This involved simply giving the grip-side of the tripod-mounted camera a sharp tap by hand and timing how long it took for the vibrations to dissipate and become imperceptible on-screen at high magnification. This was repeated five times for each tripod configuration and the average time calculated to reduce variations in the taps. We also tested each tripod with their centre columns down and fully extended for comparison.