Tiltall Ball Head, Large Diameter 36mm

2018-09-27T15:50:13

This is a large head and can securely hold my large digital SLR with a battery grip and a 200-500mm zoom lens or a large 1000mm mirror lens. The 44mm ball head is solid, stable, and smooth. The removable mount plate for the camera is held by a vise-type clamp mechanism which contributes to the solid performance of the unit. I could find only one very minor nit with the bubble levels on two sides of the mount plate vise unit. The fluid in the vials is too viscous and the air bubbles are too large to allow for the bubbles to quickly and accurately provide a reading. That said, I don't care about that because I don't use the leveling vials when shooting because it's a pain even if they're good levels. If I need a level, I just turn on the live view with the artificial horizon, and that works perfectly. Besides, nobody I know uses the levels anyway; one composes through the viewfinder or via the live view. This ball head has been mounted on a Tiltall TE-01B tripod with a new telescoping center column (relatively new from Tiltall) which makes for a more compact tripod head as compared to the original Tiltall head. It's quicker to set up and more compact for travel without giving up any needed capacity. I can strongly recommend this ball head (as well the new Tiltall telescoping column which can be found on the Tiltall site) even for heavier equipment. If you're shooting with a compact camera, this is serious overkill; but, oh, what wonderful overkill.

Peter I.