...the ball head that's the size of a pop can.
While looking through the ball head offerings on the B&H website, I quickly saw that what I wanted wasn't going to be easy to find. i wanted to find a ball head that would hold a lot of weight and not cost me a small fortune. The ball heads that held a lot of weight held a high price tag, and the cheaper ball heads were, well, cheap. Up pops the Cullman Magnesit. They had a few different models, but the one that caught my eye was the 35nM, the one that holds up to 60 pounds. Perfect, a ball head that'll hold my daughter, just what I need.
Not really, but I wanted something that would hold at least my gripped 40D with the Bigmos attached. not 60 pounds, but not exactly the lightest setup either. Now mind you, I don't have any problems hand-holding this setup for hours at a time, in fact, I do it all the time. But, the ball heads I have now are decent, but not enough to hold heavy equipment. They were the ones that came with either a tripod or monopod, so they weren't exactly top notch. Believe it or not, another prerequisite was that it was able to hold my Stellarvue 20-85mm binoculars. Now that's a tall order, since even my grip head has a hard time holding the binos sometimes.
Prerequisite number three: Hold my macro rail and Sigma 180mm macro lens. Another slightly tall order, one that none of my other stuff would fill without some adjustments. Now i can shoot macros without worrying about the head slipping.
The price was perfect too, $160. You can't beat that with a stick, especially when you're comparing it to the prices of some of the other ball heads. Here's some shots of the ball head, and of it holding my various equipment...
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Obviously it can hold heavy equipment without budging, and I didn't even tighten the lock knob that hard. The rubber grips on the knobs seems like it's on pretty good, and doesn't slip at all when tightening or loosening the knobs. The mount also has an extra thumbscrew for the plate, I guess that's in case you lose one. In any regard, it's a nice added bonus. The finish is nice, looks like it's a decent finish. There's a few spots of dirt, but I don't care, a quick swipe with my finger or a towel will fix that. The plate slides into the mount nicely, and the underside of the plate has cutouts so that the safety pin has something to snap into. That helps you know that it's in there good. Everything runs smooth as silk, and the ball moves perfectly in the mount. The panning is smooth, and it'll be a great thing to use if I want to do any panoramic shots.
So, all in all I'm extremely happy with the purchase. just the right price to keep me from saying, "Boy, that's too much", and perfect build quality. The weight is great too. With it on a Proline carbon fiber tripod it feels like the same weight as the tripod without the ball head on it. It's like it's not even there. The only drawback is the size of the head, it won't fit into the tripod case on the tripod. Which i guess isn't too big a deal, since I have a few other cases I can use. So, I guess what I have here is a pretty perfect ball head.
Now all I have to do is get the time to actually use it.
