Arca Swiss tripod head

Hi, I am an old member with a new name. Used to be James Salangar but anyway.

I am considering buying the Arca Swiss D4 geared head to replace my Gitzo uniball.

Is it worth the $ to gain the added control the geared mechanism provides?

Is your "Gitzo uniball" a regular Gitzo ballhead or a UniqBall UBH on a Gitzo tripod? Just curious. Is a geared head worth the money? In my opinion yes, I'm sold on geared heads and in particular Arca-Swiss geared heads. If you need precision there's nothing better.

I currently use two geared heads, a Sunwayfoto GH-Pro (copy of Arca-Swiss D4) and an Arca-Swiss L60. The A-S L60 is very small and I use it on a travel tripod, it has 10° of shift so it sits on an equally small and light FLM leveling base and that gives me 25° of shift in total; more than I will ever need on that tripod.

I'm hoping to acquire an Arca-Swiss C1 cube in 2019 and I'll move the GH-Pro on. I found the GH-Pro a great (and relatively inexpensive) introduction to geared heads, it was just a revelation to me. It has precision and my copy has no slop, but the gears while precise in movement only move smoothly in and around the center of the scale which is understandable. I think Sunwayfoto use very thick grease on the gears. If you get the D4 you'll need to change out the Arca-Swiss clamp for a clamp that's made in the US or SE Asia so that you can use the rails that are standard here in the US.

The head i have is the one supplied with the Gitzo traveler II tripod.really nice well made unit. I knock down and setup often.Leveling the camera on two planes simultaneously is tedious even with the friction control. Hope the Arca Swiss will simplify this process.

The Arca Swiss D4 Geared is a very nice head, unlike Peter my experience with Sunwayfoto is not a good one. Their blatant copy (which I tested only, not my copy) had a noticeable play and got sloppier the further out on the axis. Pure garbage IMHO as my old Manfrotto 410 (and 405) where more reliable. 410 has a tendency to develop a small amount of play, but not as much as the GH-PRO had.

I have a few Sunwayfoto clamps and plates from when I started out with the A/S system. These days I stay clear of them entirely simply because their products are not reliable enough for professional use in my experience (had a leveling base that just gave up, and a panning base that went sticky) but mostly because of their habit to infringe on other peoples IP. Which is in my line of work isn't very popular...

The Arca Swiss D4 is very well made and unlike the GH-PRO I used it's precise and stable regardless of where you are on the axis. One downside with the D4 (when I got mine) where the lack of geared panning. both which Manfrotto 410 and 405 has. This has now been added and you can get the D4 GP version if you need that. Another thing I'm not crazy about is the locking levers, I would much prefer an auto-locking system like Manfrotto or none at all. I always tighten them very hard so that I don't accidentally loosen them.

I also have the Arca Swiss Cube GP which is now my main head, it's another beast all together and for my work, it's even better than the D4. More precise and sturdier due to its design.

Peter I'm not sure what you mean by needing to change the A/S clamp? I have 4 A/S heads with the classic clamp which can take any plate and any rail I have to date. Including, RRS, KIRK, Hejnar etc. Camera plates, nodal rails etc.

Is there a different standard in the US?

Gitzo makes some nice sticks, but I never been a fan of their tripods heads, their earlier stuff was garbage, to be honest. Their recent stuff certainly has improved but not to the level of RRS/Arca Swiss and the likes.

fotopaul wrote in post #18779791
The Arca Swiss D4 Geared is a very nice head, unlike Peter my experience with Sunwayfoto is not a good one. Their blatant copy (which I tested only, not my copy) had a noticeable play and got sloppier the further out on the axis. Pure garbage IMHO as my old Manfrotto 410 (and 405) where more reliable. 410 has a tendency to develop a small amount of play, but not as much as the GH-PRO had.

You may have had the first version of the GH-Pro, mine was the fourth version by which time they had probably sorted the innards. I believe that the current version is the fifth. Also my experience of their Desmond branded A-S clamps and Sunwayfoto plates has been very positive. Their clamps are interesting, you can lock them on the left side of the clamp as well as the right - a nice feature for left-handed photogs.

The A-S L60 is as you describe the D4, very precise through the whole range of movement. Arca-Swiss is a relatively small company but it seems to be almost entirely focused on innovation and very high level engineering, less on marketing and legal issues. There was an amusing interchange on another forum about the apparent obfuscation of information about what the company was doing and where you could actually buy their products: "I do not understand the poor information policy and the mystery-mongering of Arca-Swiss, and I am sure I never will." The response: "This has always been the case. They rely on their distributors to do the marketing that most other brands do as a matter of fact. Parts can take many months to receive. Sometimes you forget what year they made a certain product announcement because it takes so long. It's a peculiar European business model where they humiliate their customers with snobbish contempt. And I know this from actually dealing with them professionally (at least on my side)." I'm originally from Europe and I found that comment pretty funny.

fotopaul wrote in post #18779791
Is there a different standard in the US?

Yes, I believe the RRS plates are very slightly wider than the original Arca-Swiss plates and the dovetail angles may be very slightly different as well but I'm not too sure about that one. Arca-Swiss made a bone-headed move a few years ago when they became infuriated with Really Right Stuff and started to use a powerful thread locker on the clamp screw that fixed the clamp to the ball stem on their heads. Their US rep told me the story and ended it with the sad comment "RRS had better lawyers than A-S". The US A-S type clamps/plates also differ very slightly from those made in SE Asia; not much has changed since Jobu Design's blog post in 2014.

The concept of the dovetail had apparently not been legally guarded, it was a great idea and of course it took off in the US like wildfire. At that time I had an Arca-Swiss Z1 ballhead with a RRS clamp and I eventually sold it for more than I paid for it new, which indicated to me that sales of new Z1 heads had dipped because of the welded-on clamp. As you can see from the picture of the L60 in my post #2 above there's a RRS clamp on the top of the L60. The double-decker clamp that's on the D4 shows the US jaws on top, which means that if you use stops on the plate they are rendered useless as they just hang in the air. Which is why many of us over here remove the Arca-Swiss clamp and replace it with a Kirk, Promediagear, RRS, or Wimberley clamp.

peter_n wrote in post #18780957
There was an amusing interchange on another forum about the apparent obfuscation of information about what the company was doing and where you could actually buy their products: "I do not understand the poor information policy and the mystery-mongering of Arca-Swiss, and I am sure I never will." The response: "This has always been the case. They rely on their distributors to do the marketing that most other brands do as a matter of fact. Parts can take many months to receive. Sometimes you forget what year they made a certain product announcement because it takes so long. It's a peculiar European business model where they humiliate their customers with snobbish contempt. And I know this from actually dealing with them professionally (at least on my side)." I'm originally from Europe and I found that comment pretty funny.

Not sure what you mean by that, but you obviously have a very different view on the "European business model" than me.

peter_n wrote in post #18780957
Yes, I believe the RRS plates are very slightly wider than the original Arca-Swiss plates and the dovetail angles may be very slightly different as well but I'm not too sure about that one. Arca-Swiss made a bone-headed move a few years ago when they became infuriated with Really Right Stuff and started to use a powerful thread locker on the clamp screw that fixed the clamp to the ball stem on their heads. Their US rep told me the story and ended it with the sad comment "RRS had better lawyers than A-S". The US A-S type clamps/plates also differ very slightly from those made in SE Asia; not much has changed since Jobu Design's blog post in 2014.

The concept of the dovetail had apparently not been legally guarded, it was a great idea and of course it took off in the US like wildfire. At that time I had an Arca-Swiss Z1 ballhead with a RRS clamp and I eventually sold it for more than I paid for it new, which indicated to me that sales of new Z1 heads had dipped because of the welded-on clamp. As you can see from the picture of the L60 in my post #2 above there's a RRS clamp on the top of the L60. The double-decker clamp that's on the D4 shows the US jaws on top, which means that if you use stops on the plate they are rendered useless as they just hang in the air. Which is why many of us over here remove the Arca-Swiss clamp and replace it with a Kirk, Promediagear, RRS, or Wimberley clamp.

Differences in A/S plates/clamps in common, what I objected to was your comment on NEEDING to replace the Arca Swiss clamp as it would not work with US "standards" which is false. I own A LOT of arca swiss compatible gear, all plates and rails I have works with the arca swiss classic clamp.

I need to replace the Arca-Swiss clamps because I use stops on my plates for added security. I did mention this in post #5. I do think that as usual, they designed the clamp very well with a very wide ledge at the back of the upper jaws. But it just doesn't work for me.

Sure that I can understand, but that goes for many clamps/plates that have a stop screws/security measures in place. That's a little different than claiming different standards are the cause for needing to replace the Arca Swiss clamp.

I do not use stop screws on any of my plates from any brand, far from everyone use them.

I think Peter's statement about North American standards is accurate. (as opposed to being applicable to one persons, or everyone's own personal preferences, which of course no standard claims to be.)

North American plate manufacturers ALL appear to have adopted some form of additional safety for their plates/clamps. The vast majority have gone with the safety stops built into the plates that Peter mentions. (Wimberley, RRS, Kirk, 4Th Generation, Hejner, Jobu, etc. One outlier is Acratech which uses a different style safety detent pin built into the clamp, a system that has also been adopted by others, such as Sirui.)

So, the fact remains that IF one has invested in the North American plate standard,
and one has adopted the use of the included safety stops, rather than intentionally removing them, then one could need to address the incompatibility with an Arca clamp.

P.S there appears to be another "GH-4" Chinese geared head now available, looking very similar to the Sunway, but not identical,.


... and this is not a joke (not mine anyways) but it is in fact called "Kaka Foto" loosely translated to "crap photo"

KakaPhoto spoke aloud sounds so much like CacaFuego, a Spanish ship that Drake captured in 1579,.. Cacafuego was slang for "a swaggering braggart or boaster"

Literal translation is "crapfire" if we use the less offensive word for "crap"

(yes I'm old fashioned enough that I still use insults from the 1500's Blame Patrick O'Brien)

Yes but then you rather say that instead of claiming something like there is a different standard in terms of width which was first implied. The notion that safety pins are a US "standard" is incorrect as well, a lot of Chinese manufacturers have safety pins as well.

So it's rather a matter of if you wish to use a safety pin on Arca Swiss Classic clamp you need to use their plates, this is, of course, true for many other clamps as well.

I personally do not use safety pins, and i know far from everyone utilities them.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #18783585
P.S there appears to be another "GH-4" Chinese geared head now available, looking very similar to the Sunway, but not identical,.


... and this is not a joke (not mine anyways) but it is in fact called "Kaka Foto" loosely translated to "crap photo"

LOL That is truly funny..

Truly OT here: When I see the word Kaka it bring to mind a brilliant football player by the name of Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite. His name was such a handful that it was shortened to Ricardo Kaká. He played for famous clubs; Flamengo (Brazil), Real Madrid (Spain) and AC Milan (Italy) and of course for Brazil in international matches - World Cups and so on. In Brazil football is called joga bonito - the beautiful game and Kaka epitomized that. So I like that word, it brings back wonderful memories.