I've search the forum here to see if anyone has ever used any of these Leofoto ball heads but I don't see anything.
I've read many good reviews and comments about their tripods here so I'm wondering if their ball heads are of the same quality and performance.
My main ball head right now is the Sirui K-30x which has been a great head but has two weaknesses that I've grown tired of.
One is the fact that with a heavy load it can slip a little and the other is the panning function has to be completely loosened or completely tight or else it catches high and low spots as you rotate it with a little tension applied.
These Leofoto's look reasonably priced and a few comments I read on Amazon said they feel they are of "nearly" the same quality as the RRS counterparts. Clearly they are nearly identical knock-offs of the RRS. However, I know the devil is in the details sometimes so I thought I'd ask.
Anyone have any experience with these ball heads? Particularly the LH-40 that I'm considering?
I had one for 8-9 months. It was a nice ball head for the money. However there was no way to easily clean the ball head. Hate the sand grit feeling. So I ended up selling it and went with an Acratech GP ball head, which I like much better for my uses.
For the money though, the LEO is good. I had the Sirui K20x for years before that, and the LEO was a step-up no doubt. But remember you always get what you pay for, except on some lenses
Dustin Gent wrote:
I had one for 8-9 months. It was a nice ball head for the money. However there was no way to easily clean the ball head. Hate the sand grit feeling. So I ended up selling it and went with an Acratech GP ball head, which I like much better for my uses.
For the money though, the LEO is good. I had the Sirui K20x for years before that, and the LEO was a step-up no doubt. But remember you always get what you pay for, except on some lenses
Thanks for sharing your insight Dustin! Other than the sand issue, did you have any other concerns with that head?
And when you say a step up from the Sirui, do you feel it was a significant amount as far as the smoothness of both the ball as well as the pan base rotation?
Could you put a 500mm on it without any slippage?
Dave
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theacguy71 wrote:
I have the Leofoto ranger Ls 324 and it came with the LH40 head
I have limited knowledge of other brands, but i have no complaints with the ballhead
Holds steady and locks down good, biggest lens ive used is the Batis 135 about 600 grams, no issues im sure it could hold a bigger tele
I dont pan a lot , mainly just still shots
Thanks for your input AC! Can you tell me if it has a smooth motion as you rotate it after putting a little tension on the panning base knob? My Sirui catches when I do this with about half tension and it's driving me crazy.
lighthound wrote:
Thanks for sharing your insight Dustin! Other than the sand issue, did you have any other concerns with that head?
And when you say a step up from the Sirui, do you feel it was a significant amount as far as the smoothness of both the ball as well as the pan base rotation?
Could you put a 500mm on it without any slippage?
Dave
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Thanks for your input AC! Can you tell me if it has a smooth motion as you rotate it after putting a little tension on the panning base knob? My Sirui catches when I do this with about half tension and it's driving me crazy.
lighthound wrote:
Thanks for sharing your insight Dustin! Other than the sand issue, did you have any other concerns with that head?
And when you say a step up from the Sirui, do you feel it was a significant amount as far as the smoothness of both the ball as well as the pan base rotation?
Could you put a 500mm on it without any slippage?
The Leo just felt better built, especially for a straight knockoff. I would imagine a 500mm would work, but I didn't have the big of a lens when I had my tripod head.
I discovered the Leofoto heads a few months ago. Big fan. I have the Really Right Stuff BH-40 that it is competing against (it's not actually an exact copy, but is very similar). I'd actually say that the Leofoto is equivalent in quality and performance to the RRS version. Mine came with a set of tools that allows for it to be taken apart (I have not done so), so maybe they've heard complaints about the cleaning issue.
I most often shoot a 500mm II on it with a 5D4, and the weight is a non-issue for the head. I'm also a big fan of their tripods. After I tested the Leofoto that I got versus my Feisol, I sold the Feisol on eBay.
I do have to warn that I've owned these for only 2-3 months, but in that time I've done a bunch of winter hiking and shooting an ice waterfall here in Vermont. Maybe been out with it perhaps more than a dozen times, some of them in severe sub-0 weather.
These guys aren't skimping on build quality. If you opt to buy, check out deals on eBay, where they combine a tripod and the head. When they do that the price of the head gets really, really low.
That's fantastic info folks! Thank you all for sharing your experiences with this brand of head. Sounds like a reasonable upgrade I hope.
Tiggy, thanks for the ebay tip. I just might do that. I'm currently using a Feisol CT-3442 and couldn't be happier with it. It has scratched up the bottom leg section easily and I'm not crazy about the narrow leg angle, but it seems like a keeper to me. What was it about the Leofoto tripod that you liked better?
Sorry for not seeing your question earlier, Lighthound.
I was perfectly happy with my CT 3442 as well until I - on a lark - compared it directly to the new Leofoto one. It turns out that the Feisol has pretty bad torsional movement. In other words it twists from side to side in a fashion more than other tripods - probably in good part due to the small leg angles.
My semi-scientific test was to set up both tripods with the 500mm f/4 hooked up with a 1.4 teleconverter on a 5d4 body (the 700mm-equivalent magnification gave a very small field of view, which helped exaggerate perceived vibrations). I dropped a 2-pound weight on the ground right below the tripod and fired the shutter on a 2 second delay. The Leofoto had calmed completely just before the shutter. The Feisol had calmed at between 10 and 12 seconds. Interestingly, the Feisol was at least as good in the up and down axis, but the left-to-right access was a bit disastrous. Once there was torsional movement, the tripod sort of acted like a pendulum spring and just let it keep going on and on.
I tightened the bejeasus out of it and tried again, but it wasn't much better. Maybe 8 seconds before it calmed (not insignificant as my camera as a 10 second delay feature, so this could work in some cases).
If Feisol had the spider more firmly gripping the legs - in particular with more than one attachment point - I think it would be unbeatable for stability/weight. -tig
