Every Type of Tripod Head Explained (almost)

Today i'm going to show you these six different  types of tripod heads that are available   i'm going to show you what they're good for and  what might be best for you and your photography   good tripods normally come in two sections  you've got the legs and you've got the head   the legs will obviously give you the height that  you need but once at that height the tripod head   is very important to get the camera leveled off  and exactly where you want it so i've got these   six different tripod heads and i'm going to show  you what each of them are good for what to look   out for when buying one and what to avoid when  choosing a tripod head the first thing to do   is work out what you'll be shooting the most then  work out your budget and then get the best one you   can afford i've used cheap kit an expensive kit  and the expensive kit just makes the job quicker   and easier to complete and it kind of just makes  it more pleasurable to do there's nothing worse   than having to fight with your tripod head or  your tripod trying to get the camera into the   right position as the light you want to photograph  is slowly disappearing so the six that i'm going   to go through today are a video tripod head a ball  head a geared head a nodal pan head a kind of flex   a zed type of head and then a gimbal head a ball  head is a great all-rounder it consists of a ball   in a cradle so that's this bit in here and then  you have a few adjustment knobs and then a quick   release plate on the top that quick release plate  can be the rc2 from manfrotto or the arca swiss   i use an l bracket so i prefer the arca swiss  type so i can very quickly change my camera   from landscape to portrait also they're relatively  small and lightweight so fantastic for traveling   or using on long hikes when you just want to  take some static images and long exposures the   main thing with a ball head is it's very quick and  easy to get your camera in around about the right   position so it has speed but not precision so if i  was to put my camera on here and i was setting up   and i had something that i want to photograph  i could get it in the right position and then   tighten it off the problem with this is if you're  just a little bit out and you want to adjust it   you have to loosen it off and it'll move and it  might not move in the way that you want it to now   there are a lot of ball heads on the market and  you can get some really cheap ones and you can get   some really expensive ones the cheaper ones tend  to be a little bit problematic when you tighten   them up it might move a little bit or you tighten  this up so you tighten the friction knob up and   you let it go and then it settles this one from k  f is pretty solid i really like this one this is   the one i use quite a lot i used to have one from  manfrotto that had one knob for everything so that   was one knob for panning for tilting for moving  the camera around and everything like that whereas   this one from k f it's got this one so i can set  the camera in and i tighten up that friction knob   and then it's got this one so once that camera's  solid i can turn the camera and that ball head   is still locked off one other thing with these as  well is if you don't use an l bracket what you can   do is loosen them up and a lot of them have this  groove in the side so you can drop your camera   into that portrait position with a ball head so  if you want absolute precision this is not so good   it's easy to get in around about the right place  but it's not easy to get in the perfect place also   the cheaper you go the more likely it is to drift  with a bit of weight or move as you tighten it so   if you are going to go for a ball head choose  wisely and spend as much as you can afford   the next head is a video tripod head and this is  obviously for videography they tend to be bigger   and heavier than some of the photography tripod  heads but they tend to have a few features that   really do suit shooting film and video and  by this i mean dampening this will give it   a much more smooth pan or tilt when filming if  you've ever tried doing a pan or tilt with just   a ball head unless they've got some kind of  weird design in it that kind of dampens it out   it's an absolute nightmare and especially at the  end of a long lens this is where a video tripod   head really comes into its own now i don't have it  on at the moment but video heads do have an arm on   it as well to help that panning and tilting motion  i'll actually grab it now and put it on this one so they normally come with arms like this this  is normally adjustable so you can put it to   exactly the position you want it and then  if you've got your pan and your tilt loose   you can do one or both so you can really move it  around and do some really small smooth movements   with your camera and with this tripod head and  that all comes down to that dampening now another   thing that video tripod heads tend to do is split  up the panning and the tilting so if i loosen this   i can just pan if i tighten that off and  loosen this i can just tilt or i can do   both so it really does allow you to do smooth  and dampened movements they also normally come   with a big manfrotto plate or something similar  to the manfrotto plate and by the manfrotto plate   i'm talking about these long thin ones and you'll  normally see these on electronic gimbals as well   so this enables you to move your camera forwards  or backwards and balance it on the tripod head   because if you loosen off the tilt and it's  balanced too far forward the camera drifts down   forward and if you set it too far back it drifts  backwards so that's why it has these big long   forward and backward adjustable plates on them now  you can use these for photography but it's hard to   put your camera in the portrait position and in  fact if you just have it on this manfrotto plate   you can't really put it in that portrait position  unless you have an arca swiss adapter plate   and an l bracket if you do travel and shoot  film you can get some smaller dampened heads   like the manfrotto b3 but these do get wobbly with  any decent amount of weight on them and when using   a long lens as well they start to really show  the wobble in your footage so if you do shoot   a lot of things with a telephoto lens get a good  decent sized one with a heavy set of tripod legs   so the one i have here is the mvh-500ah from  manfrotto but this stays at home most of the time   because it is quite heavy although it is really  good and i've used it to film kite surfers   with a 100 to 400 millimeter lens and it works  well in that scenario now if you are going to use   this for both video and stills it's worth putting  an arca swiss adapter plate on like i just have   so this means you can take it off from  landscape position to a portrait position   really quickly and really easily this adapter  basically changes this from just a video head   into a hybrid head so you can shoot both photo  and video with it now you can probably tell   that i'm a fan of these l brackets i do have  them on all of my cameras and they really do   come in handy they make things so much easier  if you don't know what an l bracket is i've   done a video on them already so click on  the link in the corner or in the description   the company edelkrone first came out with this  concept and it really is a funky tripod head these   can be moved into position quickly and nowadays a  lot of other chinese companies have adopted this   design now i'm a little bit tight so i bought a  chinese copy and i kind of regret it what i've   found is these points here are either too tight  or too loose and you never kind of get it right   so if you put a heavier lens on or if you're  really sort of hanging the camera over the edge   whoops it drifts down like that so you can  see straight away that the cheaper ones   don't really hold your camera in all of the  positions that this tripod head lets you hold   it now i always carry an allen key because the one  i've got does have these allen key bolts in there   so i can tighten it up when i want it in certain  positions now i don't really use this on my tripod   i use it more on my slider because it's nice and  compact and when i have the slider on the ground   i can get that camera really low and much lower  than if i had a video tripod head or a ball head   so if you are interested in this type of  head make sure you get the edelkrone one   as the copies tend to be pretty rubbish if you  can't afford an edelkrone one and you still want   to get one of these make sure you get one  with the adjustable panning section on it   and by that i mean this bolt under here so you can  actually pan it side to side the first one i got   didn't have this i tightened it onto my slider  and it was at an awkward angle and i couldn't   pan that to the position that i wanted to so  it really is important to get one with this   panning motion in the base if you're a sports  or wildlife photographer you might have seen   or you might already own one of these heads these  allow you to move the camera around effortlessly   and if you have a really long lens on there you  can move your camera into different positions   and if you've balanced it properly it will stay  in that position when you're using let's say the   100 to 400 or the 200 to 600 millimeter lens or  one of the really long prime telephoto lenses   these are fantastic i only rent those bigger  lenses as i don't really use them that often   at the moment but if you're getting into wildlife  or sports photography this is where this kind of   gimbal tripod head really helps now i bought one  of the cheaper ones to show you this type of head   and it's pretty bad so make sure you do spend at  least 100 on one of these if not more the more   money you spend the more features they'll have and  the smoother the action will be what you basically   want is a nice smooth panning motion and also a  nice smooth tilting motion also the center point   of the camera should be over the center point  of the tripod so the person who made this hasn't   really done it that well at all and that's why  this one isn't really good also when i loosen the   tilt function up this is really wobbly and it's  a bit all over the place with the more expensive   ones these will have ball bearings in them the  motion will be nice and smooth and also some of   them will have a bit of dampening in as well so  the more money you can spend on them the better   it is because you don't want to put your really  big expensive lens on a really cheap tripod head   like with a motorized gimbal for filming you need  to balance these for the size of camera and lens   combo that you're using so when you point it in  a certain direction so if i point it up like that   i've balanced this already it will stay in that  position if you don't balance it properly what   you'll find is it'll drift out of place so once it  is balanced properly you may be photographing an   animal and you'll be able to tilt it in that  position and the camera will stay in that position   and you won't have to hold it you won't have  to struggle with those really big lenses   another thing with these gimbal heads is that once  you've balanced your camera on them you can have   quite a lot of weight on that tripod head and you  can move it effortlessly so when tracking birds or   maybe planes in the sky this makes it a lot easier  now the one downside to these gimbal tripod heads   is the setup time if you change the lenses you'll  need to re-balance it but if you only shoot with   one lens or one telephoto lens you can keep all of  the settings exactly the same for a quicker setup   with a geared head this gives you the ultimate  amount of precision these heads have adjustment   knobs for each of the three axis and you can  either move them a lot so let's say i pull   this out i can move it quite a lot and then  as i lock it into place i can then turn this   for that really fine adjustment this means that  you can get your camera exactly where you want   it now it is a bit fiddly to get the camera in  around about the right place but once it's there   you then start adjusting with these three knobs  and get the camera in exactly the right place   so if you're a stickler for precision this would  be the tripod head for you i'd say these would be   good for macro photography if you're really tight  on your subject on maybe a telephoto macro lens   and just need to move the camera ever so slightly  and also i found them really good with landscape   photography they are a little bit heavy and  it does mean that you're adding more weight to   your bag if you're going for a hike but once you  get your camera in that position you can really   fine tune it and you can really look at your  frame and see what you want in that frame and   you can kind of exclude things or you can change  the horizon and then get it spot on now the one   downside to these geared tripod heads is that  they're not that small and they're quite heavy   so for hiking and traveling they are quite  cumbersome i would love to have one of these   everywhere i go but it just kind of adds  a little bit too much weight to my kit   so if i'm doing landscape photography and the  location's not too far from my car i will take   this tripod head i have the benro geared head and  it is really good but there is one quirk with this   when you turn these obviously that's your fine  adjustment but when you come to the big adjustment   you've got to grab these and it's weird you've  got to turn them the opposite way so i've got   to turn it as if i'm tightening it and then that  means i can do big adjustments on each of the axes   so again i turn this and the way i'm looking at  it it looks like i'm tightening it so that moves   it that way and then it locks back into place  and then i adjust it it's just one of the quirks   of these gear heads it just feels a bit strange  you're always turning it the wrong way and you're   like why isn't that working but it's tightening  it whereas if you turn it that way it loosens it   just one of the quirks of it and i just wanted to  let you know about that quirk now this one also   has an arca swiss quick release plate again works  really well with my l bracket so i can switch it   from the portrait to the landscape position really  quickly this next gadget is a nodal pan head now   it's packed down at the moment so i'll build  it up and then i'll show you what it's good for so this is the 360 type of noodle pan head and  it allows you to shoot big super wide panoramas   and to be able to stitch multiple layer  panoramas together effortlessly you set   it up so the tripod's level and then build it up  so it sits like this you need to get your camera   and your lens to the point where you don't  get any parallaxing and by parallaxing i mean   when you pan or tilt your camera sometimes you'll  find that things closer to you move differently   to the things in the background depending on  where you point the camera and the idea of   this tripod head is to stop that movement from  happening so when you point the camera one way   it pivots on that nodal point so you don't get any  parallaxing whatsoever like i've already said this   is good for panoramas and really big landscapes  also if you haven't got a wide angle lens this   will allow you to shoot much wider by making  it easier for your computer to stitch multiple   layered panorama shots together now it does pack  down pretty flat and doesn't weigh too much so you   could keep one of these in your bag and maybe  use one of the other tripod heads but when it   comes to setup times it does take a while to build  it up and get the camera into the right position   so again if you wanted speed you'd probably want  to go for a ball head but if you love shooting   panoramas and it's something that you really want  to get into i'd say go for one of these heads now   i have the basic model from newer and it is quite  basic so if you want to get the best out there   you can't really go much wrong with the really  right stuff ones they make a whole host of nodal   pan heads from the really big ones to some smaller  travel ones they are quite expensive though   but you do get really good quality and they are  really well engineered now i don't exclusively   shoot panoramas but every now and then i do want  to get one so i keep this in my bag and when i do   see a scene that works really well for a panorama  i'll break this out and i'll take that panorama   and it just means that the computer will have  an easier time in stitching that image together   so the way these nodal pan heads work is that  first of all you line the center of the lens up   with the center of your tripod and then you move  the camera backwards and forwards until you find   that pivot point so you're not going to get any  parallaxing when you move the camera then let's   say you're doing a multiple layered panorama you'd  point the camera down and then you'd start at one   point take a photograph take another photograph  take another photograph and so on and so forth   and then you tilt it to that horizontal point  do exactly the same again you take your series   of photos and then point it up and do exactly  the same thing now with this bottom bit this   enables you to point the camera and it will click  into place at given spaces so you'll take a photo   it'll click into place you'll take a photo there  it'll click into place you'll take a photo there   so it gives you even spaces between each photo and  the same with this vertical piece it clicks into   place it clicks into place so when your computer  comes to look at stitching all of those images   together they're all evenly spaced and if you  use the sphere projection it works really well   so if you're a sports shooter and you do a  lot of things on a really long telephoto lens   a gimbal heads really good for that if you want  to shoot a few things or you're a videographer   and you use a slider a lot this zed tilt head  is really good if you want precision you maybe   do macro photography or you don't mind a bit  more weight and you want to get your landscapes   absolutely perfect a gear head is really good for  that if you shoot big panoramas a nodal head is   really good and it enables your computer to kind  of struggle less when it's stitching them together   good all rounder is the good old ball head and  then if you're a videographer obviously the video   head is really good for that and also if you're  a hybrid shooter if you shoot videography and   photography the video tripod head is really  good but make sure you get an l bracket for   your camera and put an arca swiss adapter on  that so you can shoot in the landscape or the   portrait orientation now what tripod head do you  use let me know in the comments below and let me   know what you like best about it or if you're in  the market to get a new one let me know in the   comments below what you're thinking of getting  it'll be great to hear your thoughts now if you   want to learn more about photography click on this  video next or if you want to binge watch a load   of my photography tutorials click down here and  if you haven't already be sure to subscribe for   weekly tutorials videos and reviews on everything  photography and videography i'll see you next time

Channel: Mike Smith

Views: 66,982

Keywords: Every Type of Tripod Head Explained, Which tripod head is best for your photography?, which type of tripod head is best for you?, tripod heads, fluid head, tripod head, ball head, pan head, video tripod head, FletTilt head, Gimbal tripod head, Geraed tripod head, Noadl Pan head, 360 nodal pan head, tripod heads explained, which tripod head should I buy, Tripod head buying guide, the schoole of photography, DPReview TV, gerald undone, Manfrotto tripod head, K&F concept

Id: yAvDr1XolTM

Length: 19min 13sec (1153 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 28 2021