Jussi Vakkala Photography Blog

22nd April 2006: About tripod heads for long telephoto lenses:

Over two years I have been using Manfrotto 501 and 503 video heads to support my Canon 500/4 IS lens. 503 offers smooth movements, spring to prevent off balance 'flop' and safety lock for sliding adapter plate:

...However a few things had a room for improvement:

1. weight and bulk of head are problems especially when hiking and travelling

2. video head is suitable for long telephoto with lens collar, but no good at all for many other lenses I use -> vertical shooting is almost impossible with plate on camera body.

3. in practice 'anti-flop' spring is too weak to prevent lens from going off balance if adjustment knobs are not properly tightened

4. ..so to hold the lens on balance when walking with camera I had to tighten knobs and then loose them again during shooting.

..I started to look for alternative solution. I had heard good things about Arca-style Korean made Markins M10 ball head. To gain even more weight and balance advantage I also opted for special adapter plate which replaces the one supplied with 500/4 IS. This adapter plugs directly into any Arca -compatible ball head

The combined solution is shown here:

..I had now issues 1. and 2. solved. However lens flopping was even bigger problem now because ball head has no suspension springs, if the adjustment knob is set loose, lens flop can occur into any direction. So I had to adjust the tightening knob forth and back even more than with video head. Fortunately I had still one option to go, namely Wimberley Sidekick. This gadget sets lens into optimal balance for easy movements while you can also securely carry the whole thing without touching any knobs! If you still want to lock the lens for some reason, for example to attach teleconverter, just a quick turn of Sidekick main knob will hold lens position.

Sidekick works with any Arca-style ball head which has a separate horizontal movement apart from ball. Combined weight of Markins M10 and Sidekick is around 1kg, much less than with the video heads I have been using earlier. With Sidekick I also kept the option to use any other lens without collar, just by removing Sidekick from ball head. I can now point camera very fast into any direction I want and next second carry it without worries of lens flop -> ideal scenario for fast paced bird photography.

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