The Ball Head, it ain't cheap...

[Fraucha]

In Search of … something foreign…

In the past DPS has discussed tripods, we know how to select them, and it boils down to the fact you are going to spend “good money” for a solid tripod. If you are serious about it, Gitzo or Manfrotto are the top brands. Some of these could cost $800 to $1200, and they are worth it. We already know that you will get what you pay for in tripods, you might as well start saving now. But I want to talk about “ball heads”, and folks, we are not talking cheap either. Up front, I am asking you to save up for another once in a lifetime purchase. Yes, I know times are tight for nearly everyone in every country, especially where I live in Ukraine.

But before the head itself, lets look at the plate system that’s attached to your camera AND your tripod head. If you get a pan and tilt head built into your tripod, most likely you will have to attach your camera with the screw mount from the bottom on top of a cork lined platform. Easy peasy, but not the choice of pros.

“Pros?” you say, “I ain’t a pro. Pro means big $$$ stuff.”

Yep. You are right. But you have already spent a considerable amount of money for your camera and a rock solid tripod, right? So you need to put the two together, and between your camera and tripod is the ball head and plates.

Plates. The pro choice is the Arca-Swiss type dovetail. Some manufacturers mimic this with different tolerances between companies, and some strictly adhere to the spec. This is a rapid connect disconnect system. This means you can insert camera or take camera out in just a few seconds, or if using an L-Plate, you can rotate your camera 90 degrees and still keep the lens over the center of gravity. THAT is a huge plus for stability!

You will use a camera plate or L-Plate(attached to your camera), or a lens plate (attached to the mounting foot or a large lens if you have one) from; Kirk, Really Right Stuff, Sunwayfoto, Arca-Swiss or Markins and they will attach with almost no adjustment via the clamp.

Clamp. There are two ways to operate your clamp: leaver or screw type. The above companies offer adjustments on the mounting lever clamps to make them compatible but they all caution you to use the same system (company) through out. This absolves them of any blame if you screw up and don’t adjust form one manufacturer to another and your camera crashes to the ground. I use Sunwayfoto’s ball heads, clamps and plates. I have used others, and personally I like Sunwayfoto, their clamp is adjustable and does work perfectly with the other manufacturers. I like their manufacturing techniques and tolerances, plus their prices are a little more reasonable. I use Manfrotto tripods, that’s a personal preference also. I like Gitzo, but there is something about a Manfrotto that just “makes me happy”, pretty technical huh?

So with the dovetail, we have a universal clamp and plate system that is the preference of most pros. The dovetail system is rock solid, when your camera is clamped in, it is secure. Pros like that, so should you!

The ball head. We are not talking a pistol grip here, we are looking at a head that will hold about 25 to 60 pounds of weight and stay there at any angle. The thing is, if you want a Arca-Swiss dovetail you automatically move to the ball head and bypass all other types of head systems. Trust me, this is a good thing. The pistol grip was cool, but honestly, it was not solid.

With the head you will have a smooth fluid movement at any angle and a friction brake to hold that head in what ever position you move it to without cranking down the brake to “lock”. This is totally stable and vibration free and yet allows you to reposition your camera angle without adjusting, leavers, screw knobs or brakes. Move it shoot, move it shoot, move it leave it and shoot. Once you adjust your “sweet spot” you are pretty much done. All you need to do is frame and shoot, hopefully you are using a cable release and don’t forget to turn off your VR or IS if you have one on your lens. Many of these heads also have a panorama scale and will pan from the base should you desire! (Some of the clamps are panning clamps and they rotate from the top of the clamp also).

With this set up you can safely leave your camera attached to the tripod, carry it over your shoulder and reset up for the next shot and not even have the slightest doubt in your mind that your expensive camera and glass is not going crash to the ground.

But … what about ME? Here is my recent experience:
Really Right Stuff (RRS), Markins, Manfrotto, KangRinpoche, Arca-Swiss, Kirk, Burzynski … there was a long list of head providers. And truth be known I don’t know how I stumbled on little known Sunwayfoto (Sunwayphoto) from China, but I am glad I did. I was using a RSS BH-55 that I borrowed from a fellow photographer here in town, he was glad to let me take if for a “spin” as he had no use for it at the time.

So I thought, well, yeah I like this a lot, when I took it back to him figuring I had it long enough he loaned me a Markins Q-Ball M20. Some guys have all the money right? Within a few days I was suffering from Ball-Head-Envy and decided I needed better than the Manfrotto 322RC2 head that I had attached to my Manfrotto 055CXPRO4 tripod. I think this was his way of telling me to upgrade without telling me.

So, I did what every good geek does and plunged into the world of Gear Head Reviews, and, I was almost overwhelmed, ok, I WAS overwhelmed, especially after using a couple of the best the industry had to offer. Somewhere down the road, as I found RRS items on some Chinese retail sites and I ran into Sunwayfoto. I found their website www.sunwayfoto.com and logged into the English side and began to read once again. Well now, they were interesting, and they had quite a line up, I was sorta struck by the red PANO-1 set they produced for some photos. I contacted the company and was put in touch with Ray Wei who managed to direct me to several sites that had done minor reviews of their products as well as a few panorama sites.

I was planning a trip to China and figured I would drop in and see what they had. But the best laid plans … actually my Ukrainian wife could not get a visa for some reason or another, but I was not daunted. After careful consideration and many hours of translating Chinese forums I discovered that Sunwayfoto had a pretty high opinion of RRS and never once had anything bad to say about anyone. I liked that. But I also liked the fact that they were going full steam aiming straight at the ball heads from RRS and Markins. I began to understand that yeah, they were sorta copies but then not exactly, how original can you get on this simple mechanical design we call ball heads? Sunway is heavy into rails, clamps, panoramic set ups, and heads. They were a new almost 3 years old, company and expanding. This was not Taiwan, this was mainland, hard core Commie land gone capitalist, this was the new China, this was a country going full boar into the future. I boarded the train, bought my E-Ticket ....

As luck would have it, a friend was back in Ukraine on vacation from working in China for the last few years, we had long discussions about new companies and the commitment to quality … heh, remembering my beloved iMacs were made in Shanghai, I was on board with Chinese products. So … after some deliberation with my wallet, I allowed myself to take the plunge and order their flagship ball head the DB-52LR ($307.00) and Universal L-Plate mount DPL-02 ($87.00) and a mounting foot DPG-76 ($28.00) for my Tokina 50-135. Sorry, I have no need for the Nikkor 70-200 f2.8 (yet) (cough). The prices as you can see were reasonable, I expected to get a reasonable quality, what I got was a different story.

From the very first, customer service was fast, I mean FAST. All of my questions were answered, I made my payment, products were shipped via DHL direct from the factory since they do not have an outlet in Ukraine yet, they arrived in 5 days, would have been 3 but we had a holiday.

I will skip the packing and cosmetics of the boxes, they were dang cool looking. The Universal L-Plate came right out and went directly on my D300s with out a single hitch, it fits snug, and since I do not use the Nikon plastic cover over the LCD it fit perfectly. I use a GGS Crystal cover instead. The bottom plate does not cover the battery compartment. So far so good. The foot for the lens was pretty straight forward, fit perfectly and snug. Both were T6061 aluminum, perfectly machined and black hard anodized, with serial numbers engraved, serial numbers on a foot plate!

The ball head came out last. I carefully unwrapped one of the most beautiful pieces of machine art I have ever seen. Hey it’s black, it’s smooth we like that stuff right? I had it on my tri-pod in less than a minute, popped the D300s with the Tokina 50-135 (total weight 2.1 kilo). Easy.

The head is rated for 48 kilos, the tripod for 8. Plenty of room there. I fiddled with lever for a second to make sure it was set up properly for the Sunway Arca-Swiss comparable and compatible dovetail rails, of course it was … duh. Everything was a go. The lever bracket is adjustable as well as reversible. I found the sweet spot in less than 15 seconds, it was buttery smooth as the Markins was, there was no stuttering in the drag from one position to the other, it was simply ready to go.

I was in a bit of a shock, since I expected to have some sort of little trouble, I don’t know, just something to gripe about. I was outside in 10 more minutes and off to the park. It was as if I was using either the broke-in RRS or Markins, it simply worked perfectly out of the box. It took me longer to log on and register all three items with an extended warranty (just for doing so) than it did to set up the head and plates. I think they are at 5 years if you register online.

The ball is pre lubed. The anodize is clean and smooth. They use AL T6061 and type III Hard Anodize, this is MIL spec if memory serves me right. The knobs are knurled not rubber coated, they aren’t gonna wear out. The panning break is smooth and doesn’t slip, you don’t have to bear down on it. So far I have been in below freezing weather, I will see how it works when it warms up. I did run a repetition test of:

Mounting and dismounting, A Nikon D300s, MBD-10 with batteries using a Really Right Stuff BMBD10-K-LB L-Plate, and Tokina 50-135 f2.8, total weight 5lb. 8oz., I was too lazy to add the SB900:

1) pull back release lever
2) remove camera
3) reverse clamp lever to left or right depending on previous
4) rotate camera to horz/vert depending on previous
5) mount and close clamp
6) unlock panning base, rotate 360 degrees
7) lock base, loosen ball head past sweet spot, move camera in random directions, lock back at level.
Rinse and repeat, 5000 times. If you do one above sequence just once a day my test gives you 13.69 years of movement, do it twice 6.84 years. The single test takes me just under 40 seconds. There is your reliability test. This was easy, I have done harder and worse for Apple Computer as a test engineer there.

The set up performs as well as it did first out of the box, I have absolutely NO complaints or concerns. Nothing appears or feels to be worn or loose.

For what I paid ($422. + $67 bucks shipping to my messed up country, Ukraine), and what I could have paid with another company (RRS=$650), I am more than happy. Ordering was simple and the price was the same to me as it was to you in the USA, unlike ordering Markins, where the US prices are cheaper than the Euro prices.

I went with the largest head Sunwayfoto had to offer, this saved me the headache and stress of an upgrade later. Now if I can find a Manfrotto 057 series tripod …

Well lengthy, yes. But I would recommend Sunwayfoto to anyone. I also recommend since you are spending time on this website you must be even semi serious about photography, to seriously look into a pro level tripod and ball head. You will spend a lot of money, you may have to save for it, but your investment will be worth it. You CANNOT overkill on a tripod or head, EVER, don’t let anyone tell you that you have. (Well, unless you hot glue your camera to a granite slab the size of a mini van … ok that is a little overkill, but not if you are taking long time exposures …see? You can justify anything!) If you have a single doubt if the tripod or ball head you select is not right for you, then get the next higher model. Seriously.
Thanks for reading, I hope this is of some help.

[OsmosisStudios]

If it looks like a duck, and sounds like a duck, we have to at least consider the possibility that we have a member of the anatidae family on our hands.

I'm not saying it's an ad, but it sure looks and sounds like one.

[Fraucha]

I have not received compensation for my trouble. Nor do I expect any. This is purely informational in nature.

[zona5101]

frankly too long to read
i'm sure it was interesting

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by zona5101

frankly too long to read
i'm sure it was interesting

There's that too. I skimmed over the vast majority of it. Not only is it way too long for the information it gives, it's extremely difficult to read as it is poorly written.

[Fraucha]

Thank you for your constructive criticism. I will remember next time that people are too lazy to read and base their opinions on "skimming". My mistake!
The moderator is free to delete the thread if my post is to difficult to understand.

[Fraucha]

Posted as an update ....
An ongoing discussion, on another forum, about lubricating this ball head should it need it, resulted in an answer from the factory, as well as how to eaisly adjust the LR Lever:

Hello John,

You can use WD-40 as a cleaner to clean your ballhead when it's dirty.
And ofter use it, you have to use a dry soft cloth to wipe up. But it can not be used as a lubricant.
All our ballheads and other products are lubricated before leaving our factory.
So they don't need any futher lubricated. Just to use a soft cloth to clean your products for daily maintenance.

And I notice that you mentioned that the LR adjustment wheel for the clamp is hard to move.
And actually it's not hard to adjust. Please see attached picture,
to hold the clamp and squeeze the jaws, then you can turn the Adjustment wheel easily.
But please not to unscrew the clamp jaw too far in case the Lever coming apart!


Regards,
Ray
LR Clamp.jpg

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by Fraucha

Thank you for your constructive criticism. I will remember next time that people are too lazy to read and base their opinions on "skimming". My mistake!
The moderator is free to delete the thread if my post is to difficult to understand.

Lazy? Hardly. I tried reading it, it gave me a headache and didnt get anywhere, so i skimmed the rest of it.

Get stuffed, yeah?

[Fraucha]

I am sorry that reading is so difficult for you. Telling me to get stuffed is rather rude, much ruder than me calling you too lazy to read. Your rudeness is noted.

You started this with an uncalled for insult to my efforts to part some information to the forum. Have a nice life.

[OsmosisStudios]

I started nothing. I simply noted that the article was very long, difficult to read, and ultimately sounded like an advertisement. Not my fault your writing skills are lacking.

Reading is not difficult, but reading your text was because it was so poorly written.