Bird Photography Equipment- Support

My journey to getting decent equipment on a budget has been far from straight forward.
I don't have the money to just go out and buy the top of the range gear as some peeps do, so I am always on the look out for a bargain !
As I have said I am a Canon shooter and use only Canon equipment even down to post processing I only use Canon's DPP software, very rarely do I use Photoshop.
I am a bit of a purist when it comes to post processing I don't like the possible manipulations that can be done with Photoshop, it is more of a challenge to get it right on the camera, I may if it is a good shot and there is something spoiling the shot clone out the offending item but other than that I leave well alone, to me anything more than that becomes digital art and not photography.
OK rant over back to the gear !
I have 2 tripods as previously mentioned, the first one I brought was a carbon fibre Giottos Silk Road YTL 8383 which has a respectable spec max load of 17.6lbs, cantilevered centre column ect ect, I thought that would do everything I needed, and too a certain extent it is, it a great tripod for general landscape and macro work, but for birding forget it.
I coupled the Giottos with a Sirui K40x ballhead and believe me this is a beauty its solid and will last me a life time.
I had seen Gimbal heads in action but couldn't afford one  so I opted for a Benro Sidekick and whilst I have no complaints from the sidekick itself it did show the weaknesses in the tripod.

Canon 5dmk3 500mm F4 1/1000th ISO 160 +1ev

The above picture of a Stone Chat taken in Richmond Park using the sidekick.

I decided that I needed a more solid tripod and started hunting for something that fitted my limited budget but would be strong enough to support a Canon 500mm F4 L IS + body with a gimbal head, finally I found a Benro A4570T, yep I know its Aluminium and weighs in at 2.99Kgs but it does have a 25Kg load rating which means you can hang a bag of spuds on it no problems, it has 3 leg sections with a minimum dia of 28mm which is bigger than the max dia of my Giottos ! this thing is seriously sturdy.

I made some leg covers for it out of  pipe insulation wrapped with camo hockey tape cost all in about a tenner.

I use the spiked feet on this tripod all the time to ensure that when I plant it on the floor its going nowhere.

Next up is the gimbal head, there is a vast array of these things available costing upwards of around £500 for top of the range to around £70 for a budget one.

I spent hours researching and reading reviews on gimbal heads, I drew up a list of all the suppliers and where they were made etc, I read some good reviews on one of the budget models and thought I would give it a go, nothing ventured nothing gained as they say!

It was a Movo GH 700 from Amazon, I was eagerly looking forward to its arrival, when it did arrive the bearings on both axis were so sloppy it was next to useless, so that went back for a refund, lesson learnt !

More research and I found a middle of the range priced one from ukdigital a NEST   NT-530H Mk2 RRP £249 

I brought it when it was on a promotion its made from carbon fibre has a 25Kg load capacity and I must say that I am very pleased with it to date.

It has made a lot of difference to the amount of keepers that I now get when I am walking around reserves etc.

The moral of this post really is that you can get really good equipment on a budget if you are prepared to do some research.

One of my friends is a money no object type of guy he has a wimberely gimbal head attached to a top of the range tripod which cost in excess of £800, the two together came to £1300 - £1400, whilst it must be nice to just buy whatever you want I cannot warrant spending that amount on gear when after doing some research you can find equipment that will do the same job for a third of the price, my setup cost £390 and will last me forever, probably.

Canon5dmk3 500mm F10 1/500th ISO320

Another shot from Richmond Park