A while ago I was trying to decide whether to upgrade from the Manfrotto 410 Junior Geared Head to the bigger 405 Pro Geared Head. I couldn't find very much online by way of comparison (there were one or two, but not much), so thought people on here might be interested in my experience, having made the jump. Obviously you would expect the bigger one is better, but it costs almost twice as much, so you may well ask, "is it worth the extra?"
One problem is that although it's easy to find a picture of either one, you can't easily find a picture showing them side by side, to see how much bigger the 405 is. Here are a couple of pictures I took while I still had both.
You can see the 405 is substantially bigger than the 410, and a fair bit heavier too.
Both use the RC4 quick-release plate, which has a large rubberised top surface for excellent grip. I must say, I'm not so keen on the quick-release mechanism itself, as I always seem to end up hurting my finger or thumb in releasing it, but apart from that it works well mechanically, and as they both use the same, it's not a differentiator between the two heads.
Apart from size and weight, the two main differences in use are that the 405 is more solid and allows finer control. I originally got the 410 so that I could more precisely adjust framing with a powerful lens. If using the 100-400 (sometimes with 1.4x extender), especially on a crop body, just tightening an ordinary head can often move the framing considerably. With a geared head, you can simply turn the knobs to move in any of the three axes and it stays where you move it. However, at those long focal lengths I found that I sometimes got a little vibration showing. Mirror lock-up would normally fix it, but I started to feel I might benefit from the upgrade. The 405 is much more rigid and I have been happy with it in this regard.
Both have a similar clutch-release mechanism, to allow you to quickly adjust to approximate position, though strangely on the 405 they don't all turn the same way to release, whereas on the 410 they do. The 405 has a finer gearing so that it always locks back in almost exactly where you moved it, whereas the 410 has to slot into the nearest thread, which is coarser, and sometimes needs a deliberate nudge to engage. The 405 has bigger knobs, which are easier to work with, and needs more turns for a given amount of adjustment. I did measure how many turns for a 15-degree adjustment, but I'm now struggling to remember the actual numbers. I think it was 3 turns for the 410 and 4 for the 405 - I'm not sure, but the ratio was something like that.
A minor difference is the number of bubble spirit-levels there are on each. The 410 has just one to show when the top of the head is level, but the 405 has three; one on each axis.
In summary, for my uses the upgrade was worth the extra money. I normally use it mounted on the Manfrotto 058 Triaut legs, so the head and leg combination is up around 8kg. It's not the sort of gear you'd take on a hike, but for long telephoto use, it's very good. The 410 is fine if you're at shorter focal lengths and want to be able to frame precisely. It's very well made, but just not ultimately as rigid as the 405.
I hope this brief comparison is helpful to anyone else considering the same upgrade now or in the future.
