Posted by Nathan Buck on April 12, 2009 at 10:05 PM
A year or so ago I bought an Acratech Ultimate ball head really cheap. It was in great shape and I only paid $100. Since then I have picked up an L-Bracket and a plate for my Sigma 180 macro.
Things I like about the ball head are:
1. It is stong - it holds the load and I do not have to worry about it.
2. It is a lot lower profile than the last head that I have been using. (A pistol grip Bogen.)
Things I am having a hard time with:
1. Well, mainly it is one thing. I need two hands to set the position of the head - one hand to loosen and tighten the tension screw, and one hand to hold onto the camera and to set the position. Also, I am usually manually focusing, so that makes it harder too.
The Pistol grip was good, but it was very high profile, it did not seem to hold as tight as I needed it to, and I hated how the plates would loosen a bit on their own over short time periods. But the Bogen allowed me to adjust it with just one hand - and that was great.
The times when the Acratech is hardest to use, when I wm down on my hands an knees, is when I need the lower profile of the head.
Does anyone have any tricks that work for them with ball heads without a 'pistol grip' tension adjustment? Has anyone used the Bogen Pistol Grip head with the side ways orientation? Does it work OK for you? Any other ideas anyone has?
Thanks in advance.
Nathan
Posted by Kent Staubus on April 12, 2009 at 11:47 PM
I have an AcraTech, and it does have a tension screw on it, up on the hinge pin. I don't know of anyway to position the camera and tighten the ballhead down with one hand though. If the Bogen grip is the new one that can be placed horizontally, that might be what you're looking for. I tried a Bogen pistol head when I was shopping, but the QR plates on them drove me crazy, and the head would slip slightly as I tightened. I ended up buying the AcraTech because of it's open design. It has never jammed despite using it in extreme dust or blizzards. It was once hit by a train, too. I set up my tripod by some tracks that were just a siding. How was I supposed to know the train was going to detour around the main line and take the siding? Tripod went flying.
Hey Nathan, I have a lot of people using the pistol grips including the bogen in my workshops and most of them had problem with slipping and sagging , from what I've seen I woul never buy one.
Hi, Nathan-- under "any other ideas" is a geared head. I have the Bogen 410 ("Jr") and can recommend it unequivocally. No slipping at all. Fantastic for macro & closeup.
Posted by Jim Bullard on April 13, 2009 at 8:09 AM
I have a Bogen pistol grip and it does have a tendency to sag/slip if it is lopped over with a long and heavy lens on the camera. An advantage of the pistol grip is that if you set it level the pan movement is above the ball so it stays level as you turn it. I know of no ball head where the pan is above the ball unless you buy a separate attachment. For some reason they are all designed to pan at the base of the ball socket. The problem with that is that in order to pan, the tripod must be plumbed and the ball head 'zeroed', a two part operation. The major disadvantage of the pistol grip comes when shooting verticals. Lopping it to one side is not steady and there is no lock on the pan function (that I can find) so the camera wants to point at the ground. To get around that I use an "L" bracket and keep the pistol grip vertical. I'd like a good ballhead though if I could find one that works the way I want. Meantime an old fashioned 3 handle panhead is my tool of choice when I want to be precise.
Posted by Nathan Buck on April 13, 2009 at 2:34 PM
Has anyone used the Horizontal version of the pistol grip? I think they call it the 'Grip Action Ball Head'? In doing some research it is rated to 11 pounds, where the one that I have (the vertical version) is only rated to half as much (5.5 pounds). I my mind, this would be a significant difference and might be worth checking out.
Ball heads aren't perfect, but they had the best advantage to disadvantage ratio of anything I've tried. I dislike the two-hands-required thing too, but stability and compactness trumped that drawback for me. I don't do this often, but if you are using a collared lens you can drop the head into the "vertical" position and adjust your aim (left to right and point up or point down) with one hand only and leave the other free to focus. If you want to clamp it all down to shoot, you'll have to tighten two knobs.
Because you have an L-plate on the camera you can also clamp onto the side of the bracket and get a little up-down adjustment out of the deal, and if you drop the camera, it's not that far to the ground anyhow!
I've never done it, but I've seen people shoot on an inverted tripod center column. They had a lens with collar, so the camera itself was not upside down. Again, height adjustment might be fraught with disaster.
Finally, if the utmost in rigidity is not required, you could shoot with your camera and lens nestled in a bean-bag on the ground.
Discussion
6 repliesThings I like about the ball head are:
1. It is stong - it holds the load and I do not have to worry about it.
2. It is a lot lower profile than the last head that I have been using. (A pistol grip Bogen.)
Things I am having a hard time with:
1. Well, mainly it is one thing. I need two hands to set the position of the head - one hand to loosen and tighten the tension screw, and one hand to hold onto the camera and to set the position. Also, I am usually manually focusing, so that makes it harder too.
The Pistol grip was good, but it was very high profile, it did not seem to hold as tight as I needed it to, and I hated how the plates would loosen a bit on their own over short time periods. But the Bogen allowed me to adjust it with just one hand - and that was great.
The times when the Acratech is hardest to use, when I wm down on my hands an knees, is when I need the lower profile of the head.
Does anyone have any tricks that work for them with ball heads without a 'pistol grip' tension adjustment? Has anyone used the Bogen Pistol Grip head with the side ways orientation? Does it work OK for you? Any other ideas anyone has?
Thanks in advance.
Nathan
Kent in SD
Nathan
Because you have an L-plate on the camera you can also clamp onto the side of the bracket and get a little up-down adjustment out of the deal, and if you drop the camera, it's not that far to the ground anyhow!
I've never done it, but I've seen people shoot on an inverted tripod center column. They had a lens with collar, so the camera itself was not upside down. Again, height adjustment might be fraught with disaster.
Finally, if the utmost in rigidity is not required, you could shoot with your camera and lens nestled in a bean-bag on the ground.
Pete D.