I thought I was overdue to upgrade some of my tripod equipment. I bought some of it outright and some of it is on loan to me from the equipment manufacturers. I bought a new Ball Head, Markins M-20. I decided to buy this ball head because Kirk wanted me to wait two weeks while they built me a BH-1. RRS (Really Right Stuff) was out of stock on the BH-55. I wanted the new ball head before my next job which was this past Wednesday, April 26, 2006. I really like the ball head and highly recommend it to anybody. It is silky smooth in it's operation and locks solid with no drift in the view finder. My personal observation in the top level of ball heads are that they all do the same job equally as well as their competitors. The only difference is the ergonomics. They all have their controls in slightly different locations and the controls work slightly different from their competitors controls. The Markins M-20 Ball Head has a main locking knob to lock the ball solid. It also has a friction control built inside the Main Locking control that allows you to adjust the friction so that when you unlock the Main Locking Control, the ball head doesn't flop to the side and risk damaging your equipment. It also has a panorama locking knob to adjust the friction of the panorama plate at the bottom of the ball head or to lock it up sold so the ball head doesn't turn around the plate. If you are not using either a Markins M-20, Kirk BH-1, or a RRS BH-55 ball head, I would recommend that you buy one as soon as you are able. You can't believe the difference it makes in how solid your camera can become on your tripod. I never realized how much vibration I was getting in my earlier setup until I installed the new equipment. After being a mechanic and a machinist before I became a photographer, it is hard to impress me nowdays. I am impressed.
I also bought new lens plates and camera plates for the new quick release system. I bought both RRS and Wimberely lens plates. I prefer the Wimberely plates. I bought Kirk L brackets for my cameras. How nice to be able to shoot verticals without flopping the ball over on it's side in the notch. This is a more stable setup keeping the camera and ball centered over the center of the tripod.
I have on loan from Wimberely the complete Flash bracket set up. With 8 seperate modules, I can make a flash bracket to fit my equipment either on the camera body or the lens plates in any configuration I can think of. I can have a telephoto flash bracket, standard height or extended height. I can have a macro flash bracket that puts the flash right at the edge of my macro lens, pointed right at my subject. I can have a quick flip bracket for hand held photography usable in horizontal or vertical postions in a matter of a couple of seconds. I can also have a flash bracket to fit the Wimberely Side Kick.
I also have the Wimberely Side Kick. This transforms my ball head into a Gimball head in seconds. Wow, does this make my 300 with teleconverter weightless. Perfect balance achieved. The equipment on loan from Wimberely will NOT be returned to them, but purchased from them. All the new equipment I have are all "keepers".
I also bought the Wimberely Plamp that I recommended to JeffDinPA.
The workmanship and the useability of this new equipment is top notch. If you want to use the Wimberely Flash brackets, then I would buy only the Wimberely or the RRS lens plates as they are the only ones that has the double dovetail needed for the Wimberely Flash Brackets.
Kirk Equipment can be found here
Kirk Equipment Markins Ball Heads can be found here
Markins Ball Heads Really Right Stuff can be found here
RRS Wimberely can be found here
http://www.tripodhead.com/index.cfm
