tripod heads

[toryw]

what kind of heads are their?
i want to get a ball head really right stuff bh-55 pcl.
i dont do lots of panning, but is it worth it to get it now or later. I plan on doing pans eventually.

the regular bh-55 has the panning option at the bottom? it rotates 360 degrees aswell.

is there another option i can go with panning thats not just for panning??

[firebox40dash5]

Most (all?) tripod heads rotate at the bottom. This is so you can move the camera from side to side easily (without adjusting the ball and losing your vertical position), not specifically for shooting multi-frame panos. The RRS BH-55 PCL includes the pano clamp, which is the 1st step to shooting panos- the next being a rail to get the 'optical center' of your lens over the rotational axis (for example, RRS' pano elements package). To use the panning feature built into the head for panos, you would need to ensure the ball is perfectly over the center, which would eliminate the point of having a ballhead. The "Panoramas made simple" section on their page explains it better than I can.

There are also other types of tripod heads, such as pan/tilt heads (allow you to pan without tilting, and vice versa) and gimbal heads.

[toryw]

what im tryin to essentially debate is weather that pano option is pointless for the ball head.. or save money and later get a pan/tilt head

[toryw]

what is the point of having the top and bottom rotate?
i guess its more simpler than moving the ball head to relocate to new position

[firebox40dash5]

The pano clamp on top of the head isn't needed unless you're shooting multi-frame panos. It's used to rotate the camera no matter what position the ballhead is in. For example, if you had your camera tilted back, and you rotate it below the ball, it's not just rotating, it's also moving left or right, and back and forth, becasue the camera isn't directly over the rotational axis. The second pano clamp on top ensures that the camera is over the rotational axis no matter how the ballhead is positioned. Then, to really do panos correctly, you need the rail to position the lens' optical center over the axis instead of the camera. And that's just for single rows- one series of shots from one side to the other. The setup is more complex to do multi-row panos (more than one single row, stacked on top of each other). RRS' site does a very good job explaining all of this.

Yes, the panning feature at the bottom is pretty much just to allow you to rotate the camera for composing, without having to loosen the ball and mess with three dimension of adjustment. You can also buy plates that mount between the tripod and ballhead to level the ballhead mounting surface so you can use that rotation for panos, or you can try to get it level just by adjusting the tripod legs.

[toryw]

alright well thats good to know. ill do some more thinking. im very insisting on that tripod head plus i dont know which one to get as a quick release. the lever or the screw?? but the pano dont come in the lever style

[toryw]

so your saying that using the ball head as a panaramic head would defeat the purpose of a ball head if used perfectly straight as pano?
what option u think would be good if i want to do both