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

This is very timely for me, I recently got the gitzo 1325 legs and RRS BH-55 ballhead as well as the sidekick. (and all RRS plates). I used the set up two days ago for the first time and I found that if I was moving around fairly quickly, it was smooth as silk. But as soon as I slowed down to the speed you need to track a running dog or horse or even a flying bird, it was "sticky" and would go "jerk...jerk...jerk" rather than a smooth motion. My first though when something isnt' working right is it is me...so I used it again yesterday at a herding dog trial where I was lined up with other pretty seasoned photographers and they couldn't get my ball head to work smoothly either. One had an Arca Swiss with the sames lens as I had on it (300 2.8) also with the side kick, and let me try it out...it was wonderful, smooth as can be. I was glad to find it is possible to get that kind of smoothness but am perplexed at my ball head. Any ideas? There was no friction from any of the knobs that could have caused it (which was confirmed by the others checking it out for me) and I can't imagine all the RRS heads being like this or no one could use them. I can't call them to ask about it til Monday so was hoping someone had an idea?

Dee Dee, This is not the first time I have heard this about the BH-55. The Markins is a direct copy of the Arca Swiss without the eliptical ball that causes the Arca Swiss to lock up. It cost me $413 including 2nd day air shipping to Alaska. Not all RRS ball heads exibit the stickiness that you describe, but a fair amount of them do. So most likely it is a variation between production runs. I would return the ball head to RRS and get another or get your money back. If you get your money back, then I would go with the Kirk or the Markins.

I had really considered a Markins, I will call RRS tomorrow and see what they say. I sure liked how the Arca Swiss worked, I'd be more than happy if I got that much smoothness, mine didn't compare. There is still the chance that it is something I am doing wrong but since other photographers were perplexed too I'm thinking not.

I called RRS and they asked me to send it back to them and they will either fix it, replace it or refund my $$. They are really great to work with, so I am going to let them try to fix the problem first instead of just asking for a refund. I'll be interested to see what they find out though! I can't imagine all of their ball heads acting like this one...

I agree that RRS are great to work with. let us know the final outcome.

Today I added a Gitzo G1325 Tripod to replace my Bogen 3221 Triopd. The Gitzo is much sturdier than the Bogen and weights 1 lb less. With the Gitzo tripod and Markins Ball Head, it weighs 3/4 lb less than my Bogen with the Bogen Ball Head. I used the Bogen set up for 9 years and I can easily see me using the Gitzo/Markins set up for at least 9 years. A combination I highly recommend to anybody that is looking for a rock solid yet smooth tripod and ball head set up.