GAS talk

[JoeW]

Check out their website. Ball heads, Fluid heads, Gimbal heads, blah blah. Everything you could ever need.

[Sad, little man]

I'm not saying RRS is bad. It looks very good. I'm just saying that no amount of fancy machining or laser engraving adjustment scales can save the basic concept of a ball head. I just don't like having one knob that you loosen to make the entire range of motion free and floppy.

Ultimately I'm just trying to over-compensate for the fact that I feel that my gear kind of fucked up some of my eclipse photos, or at least the ability to take them quickly, and I feel bad about it.

[Yw-slayer]

Maybe you're just not as good a photographer as you think you are?

[Sad, little man]

Well, when your tripod head only tilts upwards at a 30 degree angle, and you need more than that to be able to point a telephoto lens up at the sun, so you have to come up with a janky solution to let you point the camera higher while still keeping the tripod stable, I think that qualifies as your gear holding you back.

Admittedly, I realized afterward that perhaps I could have mounted the camera backwards on the tripod head, as it can tilt down to 90deg. But if your gear requires you to do such mental mind flips just to put the camera on the tripod how you want it, something's gotta change. The fact that the head has no fluid drag, so the moment I loosened the lock and moved the camera in any direction, the sun would fly out of the frame in a big jerky movement was also pissing me off and was not appreciated during such a critical moment.

[JoeW]

You said it yourself...you have Manfrotto...which is basically bottom of the barrel.

And it was just poor planning on your part. You can't just run outside to a nearly once in a lifetime shot of the sun and bang it out. Takes some planning.

[Sad, little man]

You're right. It was a new-ish tripod head for me, and I was not thinking about the unique situation of having to point the camera that high up and how I would have to game the tripod head a little to achieve it. I should have set the whole thing up a day beforehand and figured it out.

But come on now, calling Manfrotto "bottom of the barrel" is some elitist bullshit, and that's the kind of stuff I hate about photography. Yes, I'm obsessed with having the best camera lenses I can get, and I will debate the finer points of whether or not Sony's mirrorless stuff is as good as a Canon/Nikon (I don't think it is). But I'm never going to look down on or knock anyone else's lower priced equipment as "bottom of the barrel," especially if it's not in fact bottom of the barrel. It's not bottom of the barrel, this is...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Camera-Three...d/182509375565

But even then, if that's all you want or can afford, so be it. I hope it works well for whoever would buy something like that. I'm sure it will still hold a camera somewhat still if you're careful when using it.

[JoeW]

Hey their ballheads are crappy, what can I say? I have two of them (one really heavy duty and the other lighter) and they both are shit. Their universal mounts are awful with their stupid flip clamp. I wasn't being elitist...I own the shit too.

But I also have a nicer rig...and I know it's nicer because I use them all at the same time on league shoots. And I can tell you which setup everyone likes to use when we have three cameras going at once.

I think you misunderstood my meaning. Elitist is far from who I am. I have old cameras, old lenses, old flashes and can barely keep a roof over my head. But with my CPS Platinum membership I get to sample lots of stuff. And when your budget is tight and you are buying for your business, you do copious research and find something that will last and do the job.

[Sad, little man]

Ok, fair enough. It just rubbed the wrong way to call something like Manfrotto bottom of the barrel. Are there boutique manufacturers like RRS that make better products for way more cash? Yes, but come on, Manfrotto is at least solid consumer level equipment.

Regarding the ball head, as I said, I think the whole concept of a ball head is pretty crappy, so I'm not terribly surprised by your Manfrotto ball heads being crappy. Sure, with enough money and manufacturing you could probably make something passable, but they're hugely trading off flexibility of movement, ease of use, and simplicity, while sacrificing precision, in my opinion.

Again, thinking back, I kind of messed up the eclipse. I should have physically been practicing the whole routine for days, completely ready to do what I had to do in those two minutes. I didn't totally blow it, but I could have done better and gotten many different photos and options of which ones I think are best, rather than just a few that I can live with.

[JoeW]

A good ball head is the most versatile setup. It's not great for video but it's pretty good everywhere else. Easy to switch from portrait to landscape as well as panning left and right. For my stuff it's the best option...obviously not for what you want to do.

Manfrotto/Bogen is not THE bottom but it's near the bottom for brands that a lot of working pros would consider. It's at the top of the consumer end though for sure. Some of their heavy duty models are good.

[Sad, little man]

I agree that it's very versatile, but if I'm using a tripod to begin with, I expect a certain amount of precision to come with that too... Precision in being able to position the camera accurately without a lot of jerky movements, precision in being able to adjust just specific angles of position as needed, and ballheads just don't give you that. But yes, they're very versatile, light, and simple.