jeetsukumaran
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 Re: Best Ballhead Markins or RRS or Arca Swiss or Kirk for 5diii and TS Lens | |
dgdg wrote:
The RRS can be a little jerky, but it does not seem to have a practical impact on me, yet.
Yep, me too! I mentioned it because it was the most clearest operational difference between the RRS and Markins, or, at least, the one that stood out to me. But, as I noted, since I am used to the \'unlock-adjust-lock-shoot\' workflow, rather than the \'adjust-shoot\' workflow, plus the \"sweet-spot\" of drag (required for the latter) requires re-adjustment (you cannot expect the drag for a 40mm STM to be the same as a 100-400 II), there was no practical difference for me as well.
dgdg wrote:
I almost bought a Markins for this reason, but I had read a number of complaints that the panning base did not lock down as well.
Again, me too! When I first got the ballhead, I did put it through its paces. This included putting it in the freezer overnight, because I had read that it tends to get locked up when cold (it did NOT) [^1], loading up the ball with a bunch of weights and weird/awkward angles and trying to get it budge (it did not, either), etc., as well as \"experiments\" with the panning base. I locked the panning base and tried to see if I could get it to rotate by hand force (i.e., not using grips or a strap wrench or something). I could not get it to budge. I also tried to subject the pan base to the largest load stress that I imagined I would be using. For example, I had the rotated the center post of the Gitzo Explorer so it was parallel to the ground, and then mounted a 6D by its L-bracket side. On the 6D were: 2 SB580 speedlights on macro arms with receivers + remote flash triggers + TS-E 24mm f/3.5 iI + Samsung tablet on mount. All of this was at an angle, so that any give in the ballhead rotation axis would result in the entire rig drooping. No droop. Admittedly, in the grand scheme of things, this is not too much weight, but those macro arms + flash result in a lot of fulcrum force. A lot. Sufficient to make, e.g., the FLM leveling base shift like it was wide open even when it was locked down. Still, there is a huge difference between the weight I am describing and, e.g., an 800 f/5.6 or something, so maybe it would not work. In addition, by Markins\' own admission, the pan lock is not a pan lock but a pan brake, and I imagine that this design decision itself may be sufficient for you to discount it, no matter how strong it is, depending on your use/loads.
Right now, when I lock down the panning base and apply torque, the ballhead unscrews from the tripod mount before the panning base twists (I am not using loctite or a braking screw on the ballhead + tripod attachment), so the weak point wrt rotation is the ballhead +tripod attachment, which means that the pan lock is satistfactory enough for me.
^1: Humidity, or lack thereof, may have played a part here. In humid cold conditions, or when you take the ball from a warmer/humid environment directly to a subfreezing environment, if the layer of moisture between the bald and its cradle freezes, it may immobilize the ball. Markins recommends a light application of WD-40 to the ball to prevent moisture between the ball and its cradle freezing solid and locking up the ball.
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