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If you pay it some thought, would you say that there are more portrait orientation or landscape orientation images used in all the media forms across the world? All film media (movies & television) is shot and viewed in landscape orientation and the cameras are thus designed to be used that way, which makes sense. Stills cameras are also designed for use in landscape orientation even though most photographers very often shoot in portrait mode, which doesn’t make quite as much sense. The only exception to this is pro-body cameras that have an ergonomically designed bottom virtually identical to the right-hand-side of the camera, featuring a second exposure dial and set of shutter, focus and custom-function buttons. This allows the photographer to conveniently shoot in portrait mode – simply rotate the camera 90 degrees and (almost) everything still feels and functions the same.
During the course of 2015, I have been seeing and hearing more and more people going on about the tripod systems made by a new Chinese brand called SIRUI. While this brand has been around for close to a decade, it was only recently introduced to South Africa by SunshineCo. and thus most South Africans aren’t familiar with it. I was very excited when the brand manager for SIRUI South Africa, Willem Foster, recently asked if I wanted test out some new equipment for them. I happily obliged, as I love trying out new gear and I was intrigued to see what SIRUI was all about. I was given a tripod and a gimbal head, namely the SIRUI PH-20 Carbon Fibre gimbal tripod head and the SIRUI W-2204 Carbon Fibre waterproof tripod. I had a trip planned to the bush to shoot some wildlife when Willem had asked me, and I thought it was a perfect time to try out this new gear.
