I have quite a different opinion about the tripod and head. I have a Manfrotto 755 tripod which is about $300 and really like it. Keep in mind that the further you zoom, the more important the tripod is. If you are using a DSLR or hybrid camera with lenses without a huge amount of zoom, not only can you get away with a lessor tripod, but with a light camera it will actually be more convenient as you can pop it in and out of tight spots like the dental work rooms I just shot a video in two days ago. The 755 is kind of nice in that although it is light and more like a photographer's tripod, it has a leveling ball system that works well on lighter video cameras like my GH3.

On top of that I have a Manfrotto 190 fluid head. I like that particular head because the plate is the right size for a DSLR or hybrid camera. Most plates are long and would stick out in front and back of a still camera.

If you have a long zoom, don't listen to me. In that case you want a really great tripod that won't flutter in the wind and is solid enough to do subtle movement at a distance. For me though, the light tripod and head is perfect and not at all a compromise.

I promised an update when I got my gear. The video I link at the bottom of this post will show most everything.

I entered that contest 24shots.com had to try and win a Silencer Pro Zoom and only had about 12 hours to unpack stuff and charge the batteries, figure out lighting for the first time, backdrop, etc., not to mention actually filming with a spaceship of a camera (Panasonic GH4) compared to what I'm used to. I did not stay under the $6k budget I set for myself. I'm gonna double that when this first spree is all said and done.

5 main pieces of this collection were the
camera - GH4 (adding a second in a couple of months)
lenses- Olympus 12mm f2.0, 75mm f1.8 primes
audio - Sennheiser shotgun mic, Tascam DR60-D, Juicelink Riggy Micro
stabilization- Glidecam 1000, Shark Slider with two extensions (5'3" total length), Manfrotto Bogen 535 Tripod and Manfrotto Monopod
lighting- 3 point l.e.d. by Flashpoint
support equipment - 30x14 chroma green/black/white backdrops, fotodiox light tent (includes another 3 point light system), battery grip for GH4, Sandisk 64GB UHS-II Card (280MB/s), Transcend 128 GB SDXC (R95-W60MB/s) and a bunch of loose ends (quick release plates, extra batteries, etc.)

Here is the video entry into the 24shots.com contest...

I didn't see any Action video on your list, but if the opportunity arises you should consider adding a GoPro HERO 3+ Black camera to your bag of goodies. They run around $400 and come with an underwater housing right out of the box.

People have mounted these things on helmets, surf boards, motorcycles & bicycles, car dashboards, and even on the wings of gliders and private airplanes, in addition to the Quadrotors mentioned here in other threads.

Yeah, it would be a nice luxury. I currently don't see myself doing a lot of action shots requiring a GoPro, but it would be nice to have. What I do see is interviews in vehicles like Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee and that takes 3 GoPros attached to the dash and windshield. "Action" was not one of my main concerns going in and still not at the moment. Studio work, commercial grade video, scalable quality equipment that will be viable years to come, stabilization, lighting, and audio were my main focus.

You're going to enjoy your gear. Go out and buy a speedbooster nikon/m43. Then forget about m43 lenses, go to KEH and get some fantastic used stuff for Nikon. I got a 100mm f/2.8 for about $100 in pristine condition. Sure, it is manual focus, but manual focus is what you want doing video, and quite frankly, given the fantastic ease of using manual focus on the GH4, I am using it more and more for stills too.

In fact, I was at a soccer match yesterday shooting my home team (just for fun). I used the Nikon lens with a (none-speedbooster) converter, and I didn't miss a shot. Well, sorta, when the one and only goal came, a dude got in front of my cam just as I was starting to shoot. By the time I managed to get around him, the moment was gone and the ball was in the net :-)

Yeah, that's the problem with low scoring games, blink your eye and miss the only score of the game. REAL football has lots of scoring to catch.

>> REAL football has lots of scoring to catch

American football, is not real anything at all since it was created long after REAL football and the players are padded like sissies compared to the equivalent British and Aussie games. American football is also absurdly named. It should be called Hand-prolate-spheroid since the game is played with a prolate spherioid, NOT a ball and also, with the players hands (mostly) not their feet.

I have no idea why American football is called football. It makes about as much sense as "The World Series" where only one country in the world is participating.

Yeah, I am from Australia, so I refer to Australian Rules Football as REAL football. However Australians are sporting nuts, so we actually play all forms of football here, including Gridiron. But Soccer has nowhere near the following here as Australian Rules and Rugby.

i mean, if you're going to have a bunch of aggressive, hyped-up, testosterone fueled boofheads looking to kill one another over a ball, why give them body protection? people (not me) watch sport for thrills and spills, and if they're lucky, blood and guts...

bread and circuses.

as a friend of mine pointed out, why not just give them each a ball of their own and stop all this aggression....

[I]as a friend of mine pointed out, why not just give them each a ball of their own and stop all this aggression....[/I]

They do that in practice games and they still biff each other. Must be that the other guys ball is browner or something...

"American football, is not real anything at all since it was created long after REAL football and the players are padded like sissies"

This conversation thread has deteriorated into a mindless bashing of an American game of sport that goes back to the mid 1800’s. American Football was derived from British Rugby. It became a different (and better) game after rule changes added a scrimmage line and downs among others. These rule changes brought an entirely new dimension to the game that is lacking in all other sports – STRATEGY. Soccer is nothing more than a bunch of men in shorts running all around a field trying to kick a ball into net. In the U.S., Soccer has traditionally been played by little girls because it requires no overall physical body strength. Only recently, with the United States moving toward European socialism and its goal of male emasculation, has Soccer become popular with all American children.

The strategy and tactics employed in American football go far beyond the simple playbook routes used in Soccer. In American football, each player has a specific role in the game. It’s this unique tasking of the individual players that makes the game far more interesting than Soccer. The specific mission of each player means that not all players wear the same type of equipment. Stronger and larger players are heavily padded and armored because their role is to attack or block an attack, while smaller and swifter players are lightly padded because their role is to be highly mobile and offensively advance the scrimmage line, or defensively intercept that advance. Because the nature of the game has so much in common with military strategy and tactics, American football has been part of the physical training in the U.S. Army and Navy Military Academies going back to the annual Army – Navy college football game ever since 1890. In the same way that military battle plans are drawn up to most effectively apply their available assets against an enemy; football coaches draw-up game plans to best apply their team roster to match up against their game day opponents..

The strategy of how to best utilize specially skilled and trained men and special purpose equipment in a game is where American football and Soccer are vastly different. An appreciation of that difference is something an arrogant Soccer fan will never understand.

Nah, like many things, you Americans took something that was not faulty and fiddled with it to produce something altogether different. Watching American Football is like watching grass grow. As soon as the game starts moving, you stop everything, take the team off the field, run some entertainment, pitch a few advertisements, put another team on the field and start again.

No continuity, if you want to see Football played the way it should be, take a look at English Rugby or Australian rules. No armour, just great athletes playing an exciting, watchable game.

Military tactics belong in the military, not on a football field.

You should be grateful that Americans had nearly 100 years of exposure to military style Strategy and Tactics in our game of football. You should also be grateful for our hunting and shooting skills acquired during 200 years of freedom to keep and bear arms, guaranteed after the Brits went home following that minor land dispute in 1776.

Without those cultural differences that gave Americans an edge in preparations for going to war in 1917 and again in 1941, you Aussies would still be a European penal colony, except you'd be speaking German instead of English.

As for a boring sport. The Brits hold the World Record for the most horrible and agonizingly painful spectator sport ever conceived - Cricket. A marathon session of watching Paint Drying then Peeling would be infinitely more exciting.

i always equated cricket with baseball - both as boring as watching paint peel... but hey, if you're into bread and circuses, along with mega marketing, and armchair sport, go for it.

i certainly don't watch any sport unless my grandchildren are playing, and even then i'm more interested in the sausage sizzle afterwards ;-)

It's been said that Baseball is 15 minutes of intense action packed into 3 hours. The worst thing about being at a Baseball game is when you've drank so much beer you have to run to the Men's room. It never fails. You've been sitting there for an hour with nothing happening. But just as you walk into the Men's room you hear the crowd start roaring for the most important play of the game.

The only saving grace with Baseball is that the players are allowed to get dirty during the course of the game; unlike Cricket where the white pleated uniforms mustn't show a spec of dust, else it would spoil the high tea and muffins served to the Lords and Ladies watching the match from their lounge chairs away from the "little people".

But hey, if you're into snobbish demeaning of your fellow countrymen based on historical social class division of superior and inferior bloodlines, enjoy. Whatever floats your boat.

[I]Without those cultural differences that gave Americans an edge in preparations for going to war in 1917 and again in 1941, you Aussies would still be a European penal colony, except you'd be speaking German instead of English.[/I]

I had actually written a rebuff to your comments, but in the interests of harmony on this board, I deleted it.

Suffice to say your comments are insulting, ignorant, condescending and just plain bullsh1t.

Just returning the sentiment that YOU STARTED here. But then you wouldn't understand that would you. Over and out.

A little good hearted ribbing about sport is one thing, your reply is just plain redneck stuff, but I will leave that to the members of this board to judge.

>>>Yeah, that's the problem with low scoring games, blink your eye and miss the only score of the game. REAL football has lots of scoring to catch.<<<

Well, maybe they should count each goal 6 points and give the extra kick? Or even better just award 6 points every time somebody enters the box with a ball. That is what they do in US football and I'm guessing the Aussie football?.

Agreed, there are 4 goal posts in Aussie rules, kicking through the centre is worth 6 points, while either side is just one. It gives more room for the teams to score and lessens the chance of a drawn game.

Soccer can go the full time with no score at all, and that makes it harder to come up with a decision.

>>>you Aussies would still be a European penal colony, except you'd be speaking German instead of English.<<<

Well this thread has taken a remarkable turn. That trite quote is wrong on so many levels that it is hard to know where to start. It has been said that the purpose of wars is to teach Americans geography, but clearly it has done nothing for your knowledge of history. Fortunately, you don't represent your nation.

US football is tv commercials with some lame game thrown in between. That's why it takes 3-4 hours to finish a game. It's not much different than baseball. Both sports are painfully slow and boring. Most of the crowd ( and people at home ) are drunk by the second quarter so they don't even know what is going on. As long as it's noisy and a distraction from their even more painfully dull lives they are OK with it.

I'm not a soccer fan either, but it's less boring, isn't interrupted by commercials every minute ( like the US football game itself isn't choppy enough with all of the starts and stops ) and doesn't go over 2 hours.