Ball, 3-Way, Geared and Gimbal: Why choosing the right tripod head matters

tripod accessories might seem like a boring subject matter but i'm gonna change your mind these are the scintillating subjects we're gonna talk about today try balls heads three ways i think i've proved my point this is interesting we just lost and gained the exact same number of viewers [Music] welcome back deep review tv viewers it's chris nichols here you know we've done a lot of videos about different tripods you should check those out but it's because they're easily one of the most important pieces of photographic gear and not just for leaning on but today we're actually talking about something that doesn't get discussed very often and that's what goes on top this is a beginner's guide to tripod heads we're going to talk about a lot of the more popular types and which ones are best for your photography and if you already know everything there is to know about tripod heads just make this video into a drinking game and have a shot every time i say the word head now the first type of tripod head we're going to talk about is my personal favorite it's a ball head now we're not talking about any particular brands today this happens to be a manfrotto mhx pro bhq 2 head but first off i want to say special thanks to the camera store in calgary for letting us borrow a lot of this gear now i like ball heads personally because they're honestly very convenient you'll see that you get basically a full range of motion you can orient your camera very easily on pretty much whatever access you want they often have the option to go 90 degrees to do a portrait orientation style a shot as well and ball heads really make a lot of sense this is why you see them so commonly on a lot of tripod kits but they're not all created equally you see this is actually quite a full-featured ball head it has a lot of features that i think are definitely worth getting so first off we've talked about how a ball head has excellent range of motion and that's true but it's hard to get repeatable results just based on the nature of how these work so first off it's nice to have something that has levels built into it at least it gives you an idea of whether the camera and the head itself are level i also like that this has a separate panning feature completely separate from the ball so once you get the camera position locked in place you can then easily pan and rotate if you want to make adjustments that way so that's another nice feature to have now lastly i have a ball head that's pretty old for manfrotto and the problem is i'll get the camera positioned i'll lock it in place and then it always slips or droops a little bit and i lose my original composition generally just as you spend more money on a ball head gives a better option where when you lock the ball and then let go your camera doesn't move a millimeter and that is very very useful as well if you get a larger ball head by spending more money you typically be able to support heavier lenses and bigger cameras now next we're going to talk about your classic three-way head and i say classic because until ball heads became into vogue this was really what people were using for a long time there are a lot of benefits i mean first off these are very stable and they can support a lot of weight when you get these locked down they don't move i like that but the idea is this you can manipulate the head on three different axes so in aviation terms i've got one knob here for my yaw and then i've got another knob here for my pitch and then i've got another knob here for my roll so you can get very precise control and you can obviously alter one axis without altering the others now these can be very useful if you want to do for example basic panoramic stitching where you can easily rotate here with angle degrees or if you want to do panoramic vertical stitching as well this can do it these are also very popular for large format cameras where having precision and being able to control your axes directly and individually is far more important than overall convenience but what are the downsides of a head like this well there's a few first off as you can see they take up quite a bit more space whether it be a tripod bag or just over your shoulder they're bulkier and they're heavier than ball heads the other problem with these is just that they're not convenient they take more time with a ball head i can simply unlock one control position rotate and adjust for horizon the camera however i need to and lock it again here i do have to play a little bit of a game with three different knobs to get my pan in the right position then tilt the camera to get the right position there then i gotta level it off here maybe then readjust there because i'm not quite on axis where i want to be it's just a little bit less convenient so a tripod head like this really suits the kind of photographer who can take their time maybe studio applications landscape architecture where you might not be in such a rush to get things positioned and you want to have precision however these have really fallen out of popularity you don't see them around very often anymore and a big part of that is if we're talking about precision unlocking these twist locks although it gives you a lot of torque you're still doing everything by hand and by eye we've got angled indexes on the head here but again i'm just kind of looking at little marks and ticks and it's not quite that accurate so that actually brings me to another kind of head that i want to talk about it's very similar to a three-way head it works on the exact same axis but it's called a geared head now a geared head uses a screwdrive system very similar to what you'd have on a macro focusing rail where i can twist a knob and it gives me very fine-tuned adjustment now the great thing about geared three-way heads is i can adjust on those same axes but with very minut turns and they don't slip at all once you turn it you don't even have to lock anything down it just stays and if i was doing something like large format or landscaper i want to get perfect horizons and really plan out my composition i think a geared head can't be beat the only downside extra cost and extra weight and size but once you get up to something this big what's a little bit more so the last head i want to talk about is called a gimbal head but this is not to be confused with electronic gimbals like are mounted in drones or the kind of handheld gimbals you use for video stabilization however they all do have to counterbalance the camera and lens perfectly in order to work properly and this is no different now these heads are really intended for long lens telephoto work like wildlife for example so the idea is this i can first off adjust the height of the camera and lens to get it right on rotational axis up here i can then also adjust the lens back and forth on its plate to get the balance front and back perfectly set up and then here's where the beautiful part comes in so the idea of a gimbal is this i can lock it down if i want for absolutely stable shots but if i'm following an eagle in flight or if i'm trying to track animals off in the woods i can have these set so that they're loose enough that there's still a bit of friction on there and that way i can have my lens positioned and if something starts to move i can just pan and follow it smoothly the whole time and because it's balanced perfectly if i let go it should stay put without having to be locked down any tighter this is great i could be on a bird's nest taking shots nice and stable that bird flies and i don't have to unlock anything i can just start to follow and pan with it through the air with practice you can get really nice smooth shots using a telephoto lens and a gimbal head okay so have we saved the best for last well not really i mean this is a niche product and there's a lot of downsides first off they're huge as you can see they take up a lot of space they're bulky they might even look really heavy although surprisingly they aren't necessarily heavy but they do cost a lot of money especially the good ones which are lighter weight and are very smooth yeah you're going to spend quite a bit to get one of those another downside on these if you change lenses or if you have a lens that changes its balancing point quite a lot because when you zoom it the barrel extends quite far well then the balance point changes and really you're going to want to unlock these things get it rebalanced and lock it down so there's some extra steps but lastly the main downside with these is they're really just for long telephoto lenses with separate tripod collars there's no real practical way to attach the camera body itself onto here you really have to have a collar extending off the lens so you're not going to use this for wide angle lenses maybe macro lens with tripod collars but that's not really its forte this is largely specialized for long telephoto use so we've covered a lot of different tripod heads today but really it's all about what application you're doing and i think we're going to go from least versatile to most versatile so least fertile is going to be a gimbal head i mean they're really specialized for long telephoto lens use but they excel in that regard now next is going to be the three-way head but to be honest although this used to be the de facto choice for all photographers it's really fallen by the wayside i don't see a lot of photographers using three-way heads and even less using geared heads but i still think that a geared three-way head is excellent when you want to hold a ton of weight and get really fine-tuned control of your compositions i would still maybe look into one of those and the top of the heap it's going to be the ball head when i first started using these they were cheap and chintzy they would slip all the time you'd lose your compositions but now even affordable ball heads are excellent they hold a good amount of weight nice and solid and the very refined high-end ball heads they can hold huge cameras with big lenses one lever lock and they do not budge and that's really nice to use you can also use ball heads for other applications like positioning external monitors led panels microphones they have a lot of uses there as well i hope you guys found this useful and hopefully it helps you guys decide what tripod head is best for your situation as always thank you guys so much for joining us and please do check the links in the description below because we have links to our other tripod videos and we do have an upcoming video roundup on professional midsize tripods that should be out shortly so make sure you subscribe and click notifications so you don't miss that one thanks so much we'll see you soon

Channel: DPReview TV

Views: 124,809

Keywords: dpreview, digital photography review, digital photography, photography, digital camera, camera, tripod, tripod heads, tripod accessories, gimbal head, 3-way head, three-way head, geared head, ball head, gitzo, manfrotto, benro, landscape photography, panoramas, photo stitching, panning, wildlife photography, birding, studio photography, macro photography

Id: ndgJlndob9s

Length: 9min 45sec (585 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 19 2021