I'm shocked that I haven't been deluged with suggestions, not to mention a list of every tripod head that people have owned since 1964.
I've been continuing to do research Here's one that is rated at 11lbs, so it's probably a little sturdier, and it has a wider range of motion and is only $70, the 391rc2: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/602409-REG/Manfrotto_391RC2_391RC2_Junior_3_Way_Pan_Tilt.html If I were looking at ball heads, I'd be tempted by 327rc2: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?sku=680140&Q=&O=&is=REG&A=details I suspect, however, that if I wanted substantially better performance than what I have, I'd need to go to another quick release system and therefore replace both ball and pan-tilt heads. On Sep 5, 2012, at 8:19 PM, Larry Colen wrote: > I've got a couple of Manfrotto ball heads, and a three axis head, a Manfrotto > 804RC2. One nice thing about them all is that they all use the same quick > release plate, of which I have something like half a dozen now, allowing me > to just have them mounted on both bodies and a couple of my longer lenses. > > For the most part, they work fine. However, for particularly heavy lenses, > or long exposures, they are not as rock solid steady as I'd like. Also, if I > adjust them using the bigma, I have to account for some inevitable droop. > Likewise, I can never get quite as much angle above the horizon as I'd like > with the three axis head. > > It being my birthday in a few hours (Bong being in Manilla, it is already > his, Happy Birthday Bong), I could rationalize spending a bit of money on a > better tripod head. I understand that there is effectively no limit to how > much money that you can spend on a tripod head, but there are incremental > improvements in quality. Doing a quick search, it looks like the 804RC2 goes > for about $65. Also that it seems to be called a pan-tilt head. > > When I'm doing landscape work, I like the pan-tilt heads better than ball > heads because I can adjust one angle, then fine tune another, and don't have > to worry about losing all three adjustments when I want to fine tune one of > them. What I'd like is: > a) a pan-tilt head, > b) that is significantly steadier/sturdier than the 804RC2 > c) With a much greater range of vertical swing > d) which, ideally, would take the same mount plate (200PL-14 ?) > > Using the same mount plate is negotiable, but it'd be a real drag to have to > swap mount plates to use "the good tripod head". > > Any suggestions on which head to look at? > > How much would I need to pay to get much better performance? > > How would I tell that I was getting something better, rather than just more > expensive? Load rating? > > -- > Larry Colen [email protected] sent from i4est > > > > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- Larry Colen [email protected] sent from i4est -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
