p.4 #5 · Best Ballhead Markins or RRS or Arca Swiss or Kirk for 5diii and TS Lens
I have a Markins Q10 for tripod and a Q3T on a monopod, both with lever release for the field, plus a gimbal, a video head and a big gear head for other things. They haven't left me wishing for something else the last 4-5 years. I think the right choice is pretty individual and you need to go through a bunch and fiddle with a bunch more, not seeking perfection, just reasonable satisfaction.
p.4 #6 · Best Ballhead Markins or RRS or Arca Swiss or Kirk for 5diii and TS Lens
To expand on what I've written before on this subject (and in this thread, now and way back then), I think we actually have a bunch of really fine ballheads to choose from, and you could do just fine with a number of them depending on your specific needs and preferences. To use myself as an example:
I own three ballheads:
My Acratech Ultimate Ballhead, with its unusual design, works beautifully for me in situations where I'm trying to minimize weight and bulk, which most notably means backcountry photographer, most often done when carrying a full pack of backpacking and camera gear and being out there for between a couple days and a week and a half or so. The non-traditional design might seem odd to those who are not used to it, but once I adapted to the way it works I found it to be very flexible and quick to operate. It is generally a solid camera-holding device, even with some good-sized Canon L zooms, though I have to remind myself that the lens/camera assembly will probably end up pointing a tiny bit lower after I tighten everything, and then compensate in advance. I usually couple this head with slightly lighter (by comparison to my larger) tripod legs.
My RRS BH-55 is a big, solid ballhead, with large and positive-feeling controls and adjustments. It works very smoothly. It is more solid than my Acratech unit, but it is also larger and heavier, and I usually couple it with a bigger and larger tripod — and I would rarely hike more than a short distance with this setup. I sometimes have a small hangup with the quick release lever on the unit, which can bind slightly in the full-open position. As a matter of personal preference, the drag adjustment isn't all that useful to me in most cases.
For travel use, when shooting with my Fujifilm X-E1 system, I sometimes forego the more solid tripod/head units and put the RRS BH-25 on a small and light tripod "just in case." There are situations where this is a perfect compromise for me — it keeps my kit very small and light for travel (especially air travel) but reassures me that I'll still be able to do some tripod-based work if necessary.
Do I think these the best possible choices? I think they are good choices for me, but I'll bet I would be quite happy with other brands and models, too. In a lot of ways, once you are looking at excellent brands and their better models, it may be more a question of personal preference and matching features to how you will use a tripod/head than it is trying to parse out, in some abstract way, which particular unit is "best" in a general sense.
p.4 #7 · Best Ballhead Markins or RRS or Arca Swiss or Kirk for 5diii and TS Lens
There are several reasons why I don't like the BH-55 and I'm sure Dave has some too. I'm surprised the ball head has such a following. I use the BH-55 primarily because it has a good panning base. I prefer the Markins Q20i and A-S otherwise.
p.4 #9 · Best Ballhead Markins or RRS or Arca Swiss or Kirk for 5diii and TS Lens
My experiecne is only with a markins q3 traveller, which holds my 5d3 and 100-400L, fully extended perfectly steady, as long as I put the mount on the lens and not the camera. its light, well finished, and has very smooth operation, though the panorama head could lock in a touch tighter.
p.4 #10 · Best Ballhead Markins or RRS or Arca Swiss or Kirk for 5diii and TS Lens
gdanmitchell wrote:
So, we now have two who "have their reasons" for not liking the BH-55... but neither shares their reasons.
In general, the usefulness of "I don't like that thing" comments is less than the usefulness of "I don't like that thing because..." comments.
YMMV,
Dan
IME the ergonomics are really bad for right handers, the ball is not so smooth and it is quite heavy. The panning base is heavy duty, so it's very good for off-center panning loads and also good for Sidekicks and similar partial gimbals.
p.4 #11 · Best Ballhead Markins or RRS or Arca Swiss or Kirk for 5diii and TS Lens
Hmmm... I'm a right hander and I'm fine with the ergonomics. I guess you don't like the large ball on the left? For me that works better, since my shutter release hand is my right hand, and I tend to use that hand to adjust camera position on the tripod. The ball on mine is very smooth. I agree it is very heavy. As I mentioned above, I don't find the drag adjustment all that useful — sometimes I change it by accident since it is similar in size and position to the base locking adjuster. I understand that some people like to adjust it while shooting, but not me.
Would I buy another? Yup.
One thing I don't like as much about it by comparison to the Acratech is that the RRS uses the tradition design with two "well" for shooting straight down. With the Acratech I can simply loose the ball and the base and spin everything until it lines up for vertical (straight down) shooting and the lock everything up again.
Which all goes to show that, as I mentioned, personal preference and shooting style will dictate the final choice among these fine options. (Oh, and price — RRS's price is hard for some to swallow.)
BTW, I notice an Induro head on the check list. One of my tripods is a very large Induro. (C313?) There are many things that I like about it, but I don't feel that mine has held up as well over time as I would like. Leg screw adjustments drift and some can no longer be adjusted tightly enough, and I'm not overly impressed with the leg lock system. In fairness, mine is an older model, but if the heads are of similar quality they may not be in the same league as some of the other brands here. Admittedly, this is slightly speculative.
p.4 #12 · Best Ballhead Markins or RRS or Arca Swiss or Kirk for 5diii and TS Lens
I'm using the Novoflex classic ball 5. This thing is built like a tank and supports really large tele's. I have it mounted on the biggest gitzo tripod available, and use it for static shooting (airshows, birding from a hide and short walks) Both are sturdy as a house and will last a lifetime for sure. But it's really heavy and if weight is an issue i have a lighter tripod with a simpler ballhead.
p.4 #13 · Best Ballhead Markins or RRS or Arca Swiss or Kirk for 5diii and TS Lens
gdanmitchell wrote:
Hmmm... I'm a right hander and I'm fine with the ergonomics. I guess you don't like the large ball on the left? For me that works better, since my shutter release hand is my right hand. The ball on mine is very smooth. I agree it is very heavy. As I mentioned above, I don't find the drag adjustment all that useful — sometimes I change it by accident since it is similar in size and position to the base locking adjuster. I understand that some people like to adjust it while shooting, but not me.
Dan
No, I don't like it. On an A-S or Markins head the knob is for the right hand and can control the tension and tightening. The control of tension on the Markins is especially nice. The BH-55 is basically loose or tight, with little in between and what exists is not fun to control with the left hand. The other option is to use the head backwards with the knob on the right, but that creates other issues and limitation of elevation with the two stupid notches. Normally I use a cable release when a setup is on a ball head and a camera shutter release if the camera is on the full Wimberley or a Sidekick.
p.4 #14 · Best Ballhead Markins or RRS or Arca Swiss or Kirk for 5diii and TS Lens
molson wrote:
I've owned or used many of the ballheads on this list, and the one I own now is the Arca Swiss Z1 DP. The others all suffered from creep/sagging/poor handling when supporting a heavy lens and camera; the Arca heads perform much better due to their patented aspherical ball.
One thing you need to keep in mind is the load factors of most of these manufacturers, apart from A/S, are grossly exaggerated. If you divide their numbers by 5 you get a reasonable approximation of the loads they will handle.
My current large ballhead is the Induro BHL-3. Using it for maximum 10% of its nominal load, I don't have any problems with creep or handling.
I must admit that I don't understand how an aspheric ball works. The ball can't feel the difference between off-center load and deliberately pushing the lens down. But I guess it works somehow.
p.4 #16 · Best Ballhead Markins or RRS or Arca Swiss or Kirk for 5diii and TS Lens
gdanmitchell wrote:
My understanding is that because it is not perfectly spherical it becomes "tighter" as you move it off center.
Dan
Yes, that sounds right. Then I would assume that for fine adjustment at a given position, the aspheric ball is no different from a spheric ball tightened a bit more. I can't see how it would help reduce creep unless the creep is very large. So it makes no sense to me because it is not desirable to have creep at all.
Conversely, if the gradual effect is so high that it reduces creep from say 2 mm to 1 mm at the lens front, it would be impossible to move the lens front 50 mm without using 50 times more force than with a spherical ball.
p.4 #19 · Best Ballhead Markins or RRS or Arca Swiss or Kirk for 5diii and TS Lens
alundeb wrote:
Yes, that sounds right. Then I would assume that for fine adjustment at a given position, the aspheric ball is no different from a spheric ball tightened a bit more. I can't see how it would help reduce creep unless the creep is very large. So it makes no sense to me because it is not desirable to have creep at all.
Conversely, if the gradual effect is so high that it reduces creep from say 2 mm to 1 mm at the lens front, it would be impossible to move the lens front 50 mm without using 50 times more force than with a spherical ball. ...Show more →
the main difference between aspheric and regular spheric is that the aspheric wont flop on you with a front heavy lens. It really does work better in practice. You can certainly put more tension to make it work on a spheric ball, however the BH-55 in particular can have a tendency to jerk a little. It's not super smooth compared to other heads I've tried, however I do think it's the best overall big head. Creep wont be noticeable on these large heads, however, what is noticeable will be going from friction, to lock mode. The shifting from that type of locking can be annoying, and the BH-55 has very little if any compared to something like the BH-1, which has a noticeable amount.
It may or may not matter much if you dont do a full lock while doing long exposures.
I'm going by over a year of hands-on field use with the BH-55, and now several years of using the Z-1 since then. I know that my trivial amount of personal use pales in comparison to DPReview's exhaustive 30-second test, so you should probably buy what they tell you to.
I'm surprised the ball head has such a following. I use the BH-55 primarily because it has a good panning base. I prefer the Markins Q20i and A-S otherwise. 