The Edmonton Historical Photographic Society tries to have summer outings—our chance to be in public with our cameras. This outing included visiting Grove Camera and Pawn in Spruce Grove. I bought this Mamiya 1507 tripod with a very much older head we will get to soon.
This image shows the tripod fully extended. Those garage door sections are 14 inches (.355 m) high. From ground to head top is 73½ inches (slightly under 1.9 m). With the column collapsed, legs still completely extended— the tripod stands 61½ inches (1.56 m). All these measurements were with the tripod standing on its spikes on concrete. This is a tripod when fully extended you would need a small step ladder to see through your viewfinder!
This is a straight—no tricks or fancy improvements—tripod. The legs are held from flapping around by a central spider. Note the solid crank hub and massive tightening knob. All the knobs are solid and you can tighten them to your heart’s content. Also note the excellent gear rack on the central column.
Those top sections of the tripod are 1¼ inches (3.175 cm) in diameter. Just as a side note Gitzo (another famous tripod manufacturer) used to rate their tripods by their leg diameters for a good reason. The bigger the diameter, the more weight the tripod can handle and the more rock-solid the legs.
The middle section of leg is 1 1/16 inches (2.7 cm) in diameter. The bottom section is ⅞ inch (2.2 cm) in diameter. I ask you to measure your tripod to see if it has sections anywhere close to as large as these. Of course this tripod weighs 4 kilograms (close to 9 pounds), so there are good reasons most people’s tripods aren’t built like the Mamiya 1507.
Mention was made of the head being not standard. Images I have found of the Mamiya 1507 tripod show a beautiful matching Mamiya-made head. This head is German and I can’t begin to understand the horror of through-bolting that head to the column. You lose some inches of collapse but I guess you gain a couple of inches in height. Speaking of collapsed, the tripod is 31 inches (79 cm) in length when collapsed.
The head’s controls are exaggerated. I can only guess the original camera would be so big—and probably made of wood and takes plates—you needed the controls to stick out from under and be defined by shape (straight for front back, bent for tilt side-to-side)’
Down at the hub of the spider you find another of those massive tightening knobs. Note also the spider arms are aluminum channel, not bent plate. While you probably can’t stand on the arms, you probably couldn’t bend them with your hands either.
Back to the head. Starting at the bottom we find a calibrated pan head (possibly a second part called a “Rotakin”) with a simple chrome arm lock (peaking out on the back above the tilt shaft). Then we have the classic twin hinges for tilt in two axis. At the top there is a attachment you can turn into the camera with the same style lock as the panorama base. And here is where you find I just spent $20 buying a tripod I can’t use for the majority of the cameras I own. We will return to this too.
The head is credited to H. J. Riess of Munchen, Germany. I did try to gather some information on that company but—
autocorrect kept returning information on Reis products
I only found two references and they were both for a tripod
I did find some images that matched the head, but no new information
The mention of the tripod from the head manufacturer was in a January 1957 Popular Photography (page 104). It said—
“The center pillar of the new heavy-duty tripod made by H.J. Riess of Munich is raised and lowered by a jack-handle type of lever operation” A later reference mentioned the lowering of the column was constrained by shock absorber style hydraulics.
That is a ⅜ inch screw (instead of the common ¼ inch), and that could be my salvation. I happen to have an aftermarket (Benro DJ80) tilt head—supposed to be used on monopods to give them a fixed angle—that has a ⅜ inch mounting and a ¼ inch Quick Release plate attachment for the camera. I can simply bolt them together and I have an even taller tripod The DJ80 adds 2.68 inches/ 68 mm and adds 0.27 kg / 0.60 pounds. Of course I can only use cameras under 2.5 kg (5.51 pounds), but anything larger is likely to have a ⅜ inch mount.
The ⅜ inch screw is a common size for attaching heads. I guess I could also use a certain Manfrotto RCO Rapid Connect Adapter blogged about earlier…
The tripod hub has a round spirit level. You would have to adjust the leg’s length individually to get that bubble centered as the spider and floppy legs hinges have to be tightened to keep whatever level setting you are trying to achieve.
Looking down the axis of the tripod you can see how every control is large and in the hub locks particularly, have the same orientation for ease of use. In some cases you would be erecting a tripod many times a day and everything that makes it easy is worthwhile.
The story continues because I found the Riess head isn’t rock steady when all the adjustments are tight. Part of the problem is that very strange attachment of the Riess head to the Mamiya’s center column.
Starting at the top and working down
3/8 inch head mounting stud
top block bigger than the column’s diameter
Two mounting bolts that tighten through the top spacer into the through bolt (Bottom)
Bottom spacer
Through bolt threaded into top block
You have to admire all the drilling and threading except—
the two spacers were not quite tight in the column. Paper masking tape had been used to make the space tighter but it had worn away to leave the adapter able to move
because the two mounting bolts were not tightened into the through bolt positively
The mounting bolts actually protruded out of the holes in the column slightly—leaving the question do you tighten them excessively and risk stripping out the threads, drill the hole slightly deeper and hope you don’t destroy the threads or shorten the mounting bolts
I decided to simply use to two soft plastic spacers between the mounting bolt’s head and the column. It is probably not making everything as rock solid as you could hope, but it took out the wobble. It is at the cost of making the column project even higher—by a centimeter or more—than the existing adapter provided.
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