From: Larry Colen <[email protected]>
Sent: Dec 27, 2020 11:11 PM
To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List <[email protected]>
Subject: Ball head question
I suspect that in theory the tripod mount foot on most telephotos is pretty
close to where they think the center of gravity will be when it’s mounted on a
camera.
When I’m using a ball head I find that this is very rarely the case.
I can only speak to the lenses I own, but I have found this is rarely
the case.
Note the length of the plate under my A*600/5.6
https://www.flickr.com/photos/11819824@N03/50171571922/in/dateposted-public/
The tripod mount is on the back green chassis component, the balance
point is right at the jamb nut locking the plate to the head.
In order to get something close to workable, I have to put the battery
grip onto the K1`, and then it's not bad. It was never great with the
smaller and lioghter APS-C cameras.
My A 400/5.6 is similar, albeit shorter, and my FA* 200/4 macro is also
similar, but shorter still.
I have a little family of plates of different sizes to balance the lenses.
This is another of the things I don't understand about what Pentax was
thinking. These are all film era lenses that would have lighter bodies
mounted to them, yet they require something around the weight of Cotty's
beer gut to balance them.
I was thinking that if I had a really long arca swiss plate on my lens,
I could attach it much closer to the balance point. However I suspect
that If I’m shooting at anything not very close to level, it would no
longer be that well balanced.
Is there a good solution other than dropping $BIGNUM on a gimbal mount?
In a related question, When I’m doing astrophotography, I’ve found that a
pan/tilt head makes it a lot easier because I can adjust one axis at a time and
not risk entirely losing my aim. I have accomplished this by putting an
Arca-swiss ballhead on one of my tiltall tripods. Are there any decent
tilt-pan arca-swiss tripod heads? Preferably ones that aren’t outrageously
expensive?
I think that with long lenses, a gimbal head really is the way to go. I
have a Wimberley, based on recommendation of Ken Waller, and it is just
fine, though it is pretty pricey.
Feisol makes a nice one that is still expensive, though not goofily so:
https://www.feisol.net/gimbals.html
It's even on sale right now......
bill
--
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.
