Tag: ball head

MAGNAchrom magazine issue #5 is up: night photography

Nicolai Grossman Leave a comment

FINALLY! The 5th issue of MAGNAchrom is ready for you to download at www.magnachrom.com

This issue is quite special — Not only is it dedicated to all things related to night photography, including an interview with Tom Paiva, one of the most prolific night photographers in the world, but we also have an exclusive in-depth review of 24 ballheads from Gitzo, Manfrotto, Arca-Swiss, ReallyRightStuff, Velbon, Giottos, Freedom, AcraTech and Novoflex (seven of which received an Editor’s Choice — read to find out who won!)

CONTENTS OF VOLUME 1, ISSUE 5

HOT MODS: Large Format Fisheye
4-SQUARE: Alex Watanabe
PROJECT: Ambient Night, Kit Courter
TECHNIQUE: Film for night photography
TRAVELS: Night and the Built Environment
ARCHITECTURE: Kirk Gittings: The Edge of Darkness
EXPERIENCE: Images of Night
CENTERFOLD: Philip Pankov
EQUIPMENT: Adventures in 4×10
CUSTOMIZE: Vacuum frame for LF holders
EXTREMES: Longyearbyen
INTERVIEW: Tom Paiva
PORTFOLIO: Larry Wright
REVIEW: 24 Ballheads Compared

As always, we hope you value this latest issue of MAGNAchrom, as we value your continued support.

Be sure to let us know what you think, and as a reminder: we want to feature your medium and large format photographs in MAGNAchrom, so please consider contributing.

MAGNAchrom is a labor of love. Enjoy!
J Michael Sullivan
Editor/Publisher, MAGNAchrom

MAGNAchrom — The Alternative Journal of Medium and Large Format Photography

MAGNAchrom is available as a free PDF download for registered users (which is also free).

Arca Swiss Monoball Z1 ballhead review at The Digital Picture

Nicolai Grossman 2 Comments

Unique to the Arca-Swiss Monoball Z1 Ballhead is the aspherical ball. As the load on the head is moved away from center, the effects of gravity increase. To offset the higher gravitational effect, more ball tension is needed. Conventional ballheads require correcting tension control adjustments to be made. The Arca-Swiss Monoball Z1 Ballhead, because of its elliptical ball, automatically adjusts to handle the off-center load. In other words, the tension automatically gets tighter as you move the load off-center. And it works as advertised. Very nice.

Continue reading at The Digital Picture

I personally don’t like ball heads that much. In theory, they seem faster, but in practise, they’re much slower for me than a 3-way tilt head. If you nail the camera position the first time, it’s faster, but how often does that happen in real life? For me, never. With a 3-way, I can get one axis right, lock it down, and move on to the next withouth screwing up the others. With a ball head, if you don’t get it perfect the first time, you have to start all over on all the axes.

Am I missing something? (Really, if there’s some way of using them that I’m not aware of, I’d like to learn it, because 3-ways are heavy and stick out.)