New Acratech GV2

Anyone have a chance to check out a prototype or something of this ballhead? Works as a gimbal head with medium teles - hmmm! Now that's something interesting. If it works as described, it's be a great travel ballhead!

http://www.acratech.net/miva/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=AOS&Product_Code=GV2&Category_Code=Ballheads

I'm about to place an order for one. Hopefully, I wont be the first guinea pig :)

Vandit

You might want to reconsider ordering one. If you look closely, the ball head places the weight of the lens/camera well off of the center of the tripod. This can introduce instability and vibrations.

Tom, good point. I had noticed that, but hadnt paid any attention, as I figure it would be about the same as putting the camera in portrait mode on most ballheads? Also, assuming that I am using the ballhead for panning, there shouldnt be any static load on the head. I wonder if that would matter?

Maybe I wont be the first guinea pig after all! :)

Vandit

With the lighter lenses they are talking about and mounting the head to something substantial maybe a Gitzo 1325 minimum, I think it would work OK. I have doubts it would be as smooth as a gimbal type though. It might be the onlyh option for the medium weight lenses such as 80-400mm lenses at the moment.


Kent in SD

Vandit Kalia wrote:

I had noticed that, but hadnt paid any attention, as I figure it would be about the same as putting the camera in portrait mode on most ballheads?

I don't use the "portrait" position on any tripod head. I use either Really Right Stuff or Kirk Enterprises L-brackets to turn a lens, without a tripod collar, vertical. I'm not entirely sure why anyone would want to spend approx. $350.00 for a gimbel head for the lightweight telephoto lenses, anyhow. The lightweight telephoto lenses sit fine on a standard ball head without creating too many problems with "ball head flop". I use my 300mm f 4L lens on a RRS BH-40 ball head and hardly ever have issues with "ball head flop". Gimbel heads, however, are absolutely necessary, IMHO, for the larger and heavier "supertelephoto" lenses.

Am I missing something? Except that it is (or might be) smoother, how is this different than dropping into the slot on my ancient B1? Like Tom W., I use L-brackets to get verticals with short lenses, the perched-on-top postion for modest telephotos with collars, and a gimbal (attachment in my case - too cheap to get a real Wimberley) for super fantastic telephotos. The operational dream for collarless lenses, as far as I'm concerned, looks like the RRS camera rotation device, but it very bulky and I can't image coughing up that kind of money just to make it faster to turn the camera 90 degrees. I'll just hang in there with L-plates. It is great to have so many choices though. When I got my B1 it was really the only reasonable option - although the price was unreasonable - got my money's worth though...it's still working faithfully for me.

Pete D.

Well, the thing is that I am in the market for a new light head anyway. I already own a Wimberley as well as the sidekick, but often space restrictions make it hard to take even the Sidekick. So I was thinking that if the Acratech works as a good ballhead and allows a gimbal-style movement, it might be worth paying the small premium over the regular Acratech for this benefit.

As for the difference, it did look a lot smoother than dropping into the slot of the B1 - enough that it could make the difference between successfully panning and not.

Cheers,
Vandit