I am a landscape shooter, I almost always shoot from a leveled position. This device offers 14 degrees of freedom plus I could fudge the tripod. My hiking kit will be a Kenba bag with a 1DS-mk3, Samyang 15, 17TSE and 24-70 f2.8Mk2.
What ballhead that supports 15 pounds is under 14 oz?
Aug 03, 2012 at 04:58 PM
Lars Johnsson Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
Ok, I was not aware those ball heads were that light. Guess I have been wanting a leveling base and thought I had a freebie.
I typically lock my ball head so that its level with the tripod and only use it for rotation. I have to spend a lot of time leveling the tripod though, but it needs to be level anyway.
I like my landscapes shot from a level position. If I need to raise or lower the horizon, I use shift. If I am doing a macro I hand hold. I do 5 or 6 macros a year.
Look into Arca swiss P0. It is one step level the ballhead and the panning doesn't change the level. Alternately a panning clamp like the PCL from RSS.
You may want to think about a geared head for landscape. Think about it: dialed-in control over all three dimensions, one at a time. Reduces the need to get the tripod absolutely level. Adjustments to all three dimensions marked in one-degree increments.
Manfrotto 405 is the big gun, the 410 is little brother. You can't go wrong with either one for landscape. Note, however, that big brother will not take on a long tele - too much distributed mass -
Looking at the lightness of the smaller ballheads, which came as a surprise, this does not make sense to me now. But trust me, I do not point my lenses up or down in a typical landscape situation.
The majority of my stuff is done within 1/4 mile of my vehicle which means I can take the big tripod and even then I always shoot level.
