I made in 50% of the way through the video before I ended up in hospital due to Chris' drinking game suggestion.

Since you announced the beginning of the drinking game i counted 31 heads. If each head would be a shot of 4cl (1.35256 oz) it would make 124 cl which is 1.24 liters of alcohol ( 41.9294 oz ) .. of course not every alchohol weights the same so lets just use water for the sake of universality. 1.24 liters = 1.24kg (2.733732 lbs) that leaves us to a final conversion which is 62% of the weight of NOCT.

Just in time for father's day we have Chris presenting us with a lot of head.

I'm surprised there was not a segment with Jordan talking about fluid heads for video.

Jordan's finishing of the cold open had me cracking up :-D

Please do a video on lighting also. Thank you.

I used my Pentax 645Z with my gimbal head. The design of the Pentax being able to put a small arca swiss plate on both the vertical and horizontal not needing a L bracket made it work perfect on the gimbal. With the addition of a leveling base it was the perfect setup for when I wanted to shoot wildlife with a 600mm F4 or shoot landscape with the 645.

Finally, a video about the most most important part of any tripod or monopod: the interface to the camera! Thanks!

So I have just spent almost 10 minutes listening to a guy talking about balls and heads.

You guys forgot to include Jordan's favorite head, a fluid head. And if you're including gimbal heads in the niche factor, you could've included Panoramic heads, macro rails, pistol grip heads and motorized heads. That would've gotten everyone drunk for sure.

I've been using a Manfrotto video head for years for sports and bird shooting. Unlike the gimbel it is not only for long lenses, but works great for architecture and real estate shooting with wide angle lenses. With the long lenses, the roll function is done via the lens itself by loosening the collar. For wide lenses, I use an L-bracket to switch between port and land. The video heads are also able to handle the weight of the long lenses, as some are made for very heavy video cameras, etc.

743 but i ran out of beer afert 2 munites. If I got things right, Chris' take on a good head favours big balls and a single small knob over heavy and large equipment that defies gravity.

My personal choice is a fluid head with a levelling tripod (bowl head)

Thank you for explaining it so well.

Great Videos!!!!! So nice to have quick reviews and nice roundup once in a while!!! Excellent work! Thank you very much!!!

Chris is trying to kill me with this drinking game

Best of both worlds... the Arca D4 geared head ! My personal favorite for photo !

Thank you for video. Wimberly has a nice adapter to allow you to attach a regular camera and lens to it even if the lens does not have a tripod foot. It’s the Wimberley M-8 Perpendicular Plate Flash Bracket Module. Other gimbal manufacturers have similar adapters. Personally I use many ball heads of certain sizes, a gamble head and a fluid head that can give support like a gimbal and the same level of flexibility with long lenses.

Once again a great video from you👏i recently purchased a Benro H0 ballhead for my new Benro AF38D Monopod after this video. I can't wait to get it, i'm very excited .. Thanks a lot.

Probably my biggest mistake was upgrading my tripod. I bought into the hype of buying a bigger ball head for my tripod and I spent an absolute fortune on the head, quick release plate and a couple of plates and it was complete overkill for what I really needed, was a weighed a ton and was a pain to carry around. Now I am not suggesting buying a cheap head but make sure you get the right ball head for the equipment you are going to use. The ball head I used can take 26lb* (around 12kg), where as my DSLR and 70-200mm f/2.8 lenses weight in at just over 6lb. Even if I had got the next ball head down it could have taken 17lb (8kg). I will also mention I much prefer to use an angle bracket, which is just easy to take off and put on when going from portrait to landscape, instead of just turning the ball head side on. This isn't so much to do with the ball head and much more to do with the plate being secured to the camera. An option not mentioned was the pistol grip ball heads, which do have their fans. * This is usable weight not max weight. Different manufacturers test in different ways.

The biggest reason the 3-way heads used to be the standard was the cost of precision. Until it became affordable to have very high-precision machining, a decent ballhead could easily cost 5-10 times as much as an otherwise comparable (robustness, stability, sturdiness) pan-and-tilt head. Nowadays, a decent ballhead can be purchased for under $200 US with minimal slippage and drift; that wasn't the case not so long ago. At the most basic price points, though, a pan-and-tilt head can be more robust for the same manufacturing cost; the very cheapest ballheads today are still not as stable as a cheap 3-way. FWIW, my main tripod head is a 25+ year old Arca-Swiss B1 ballhead, but I do switch it out for a (cheap) pan-and-tilt head when I need multi-axis precision for shooting products and such. (I don't do that enough to justify a geared head.)

Can't believe how little I knew about this stuff, but *loving* it! And, didn't have go past three dimensions - no strings nor spacetime! Off to order my ball head.

Very educational. Thanks.

Thanks so much guys - this was super useful and something I've actually was looking into because I want to buy a new tripod. Love your videos :-)

DPReview is crazy wrong about using 3-way head. The right way is 1.Unlock horisontal pan lock. 2. put your hands to two other locks (handles), unlock them simulteniously (it just slight turn) and compose the shot (keeping holding for handles) with all three axis unlocked. When you composed, just slight rotation to lock two handles, then lock the horisontal. In reality it so much easy to do, it super-convinient. Because after composing the shot you can easily fix (if needed) your horizon seperatly.

after years of searching I finally found the perfect solution: a good ball head which sits on the tripod (for fast and easy rough composition) combined with a specific panorama 2 axis gear head from Leophoto (called Leofoto G2 panorama head for fine tuning) when needed (e.g. when shooting with a long lens). This combination is lightweight and pefectly allows to fine tune the composition and it avoids all the disadvantages of a normal 3 axis geared head

A follow-up to your older video on fluid heads would be in order. Specifically, what's inside and why. Like, why a much less expensive Davis & Sanford (Tiffen) tripod and head is way better built than Sachtler's Ace line.

Hands down the best opening I've ever seen on a KZfaq video - nice one!

got manfrotto geared one, if you press camera a bit spring don't hold load and everything falling apart. In fact got almost all heads from this video :)

You can actually use the gimbal head for small lenses. You can use a nodal rail to attach your camera body to the gimbal. It works if your shooting wildlife, birds or if you do landscapes.

Thanks so much !

I think mentioning Tripod plates would have been a good idea as there are still so many types, and once you've started it's endless fun. After I went to an Arca Swiss ballhead I then needed to get plates for several cameras (the ones designed for particular bodies are often better, as won't move if get slightly loose) and then you need things like a Arca Swiss clamp for the Monopod, and so on (e.g. plates for lenses with tripod mounts, or Arca-Swiss replacement lens mounting brackets, as I did with my 100-400). Also some heads (especially video fluid ones) only come in larger plate sizes and won't take the plates you now have almost everywhere. Oh and another tripod/head thing - the tripod may have small grub screws under its plate that you should tighten once you've screwed the head onto the tripod. They're to help stop accidental rotation when you use it with heavy/long loads where you can have a lot of rotational torque. Also to annoy people trying to change the head in the field and have forgotten about them, or not brought a suitable tool. Also to note - I have a ball head and a geared head (the Benro, great for unguided Astronomy, e.g. for stacking, as when you unclamp a ballhead you're often immediately some way off the object and it can be a pain to find it again), but they should have made the quick release clamp knob more different from the geared knobs, as if you are reaching round to adjust something you really don't want to turn that (then there's a discussion on Arca Swiss plate security features... and subtle incompatibilities...) BTW I tied a small plastic bag around mine, so is clearly different.

Excellent explanation.

Cracking video. Watched it for the humour and wasn't disappointed. I use a ball head and a gimbal.

Used a gimbal head for wildlife photo on long lenses. I can tell you, its a PITA to use for action and birds in flight. Freeholding it works sooo much better.

Finally a great video about tripod heads!

Grear drive heads (gulp) are an absolute for astrophotography.

This is the exact video I asked for last time you guys did a tripod video. Thanks!

Great video Chris, as usual. 👍🏻👍🏻

Love those guys

I use a 3-way geared head for landscapes and macros. My ball heads are for action photography. Investing in quality tripod (and monopod) and heads was the best photographic investment I ever made. The gear lasts for decades!

I put up a video on the Benro geared head, which I liked for a while. In the end though, I started to notice a little slop, just like the Manfrotto 410s I had previously. Had to bow to the inevitable and invest in an Arca D4.

Balls, heads and 3way jokes aside; I'm a geared head gal myself. Bought the Benro last year and it's the only head I've used that doesn't freeze when you get below 0f. Landscape and astro/aurora are what I shoot mostly. I do have a ball head for my travel tripod just for weight considerations.

Fun B-roll shots throughout. :D

This informative vdeo was made really fun to watch thanks to your assistant (forgot his name). His facial expressions show that he paid attention in high school drama class. :-D

Reading my mind. Needed this video since I am on the lookout for a new tripod (and head). My BeFree I bought 4 years ago for a6300 and largest lens being 18-105 just doesn’t cut it anymore for my A7riii and 200-600 these days :)

Great video again guys. What about fluid heads? They are really good and I use one for landscape and wildlife photography

That Benro head is GREAT value for money!!!

great work on this video :)

Excellent video. Thanks Chris. I now realize my head needs replacing.

Really enjoyed your style of video and humour and subscribed. Greetings from Papua New Guinea! 👋

I have a ball-head, a geared head and three-way head. I only use the three-way head for a well planned situation where I don't need to move the camera at all after it has been fixed. It's my least used one and I get it only because I have it and it is fixed on one of my tripods. The ball-head is perfect for quick day-to-day use while moving around, because its fast, light-weight and easy to use. This is the one I'm taking when using a digital camera. My favorite one is the geared head though, because I love to be exact. When I need or want to produce the perfect shot, or when I take my large format camera out, I use this one. I'm not into sports or wildlife photography, so I actually didn't know of the existence of those gimbal heads. But if I would ever venture into this kind of photography, such a head will be on my preparation list now.

BAAHAA!! That intro was awesome!!

I've been using several Bogen 3126 pan/tilt fluid heads. I do have a couple of ball heads, but I don't like them as much. I do mostly video, though.

LOL - the intro to this video has put me on your subscribe list thank you

A usefull video

Getting ready to hit the road would like to see a update to the excellent camera bag round up of Aug 22, 2020

I'm a ball head guy. BH-55, BH-40, and BH-30. I had a Wimberley gimbal head, which worked great, but I sold it when I sold my 600mm lens.

Jordan starring an eagle played perfectly!

How about discussing gimbal ball heads? For example, the UniqBall comes in two sizes with different capacities. It is engineered in a different way from conventional ball heads as it has two concentric balls. One to set the horizon level. And the second smaller enclosed one is used to pan and tilt without diverging from the level horizon. It can handle the largest telephoto lenses with a lens foot as well as cameras mounted with a normal or wide angle lens. It requires a slightly different skill set to use than a conventional gimbal, but it does the job extremely well in a very compact size and lighter weight.

Jeeeeesus that intro 😂 Now I know what DPReview stands for

I'm surprised you guys didn't talk about arca and manfrotto plates

cool accessoirs for my sony a6000

for wildlife shooters that don't want to spend money on a gimbal head, and perhaps already have a ballhead, there's a trick you can do to kinda mimic a gimbal head, you just won't be panning on axis (of the tripod)

Nice video, like your style! I made the mistake of doing your drinking game using 58.5% cask strength peated whisky... I'm typing this while feeling I'm on a very blurry double canoë in a force 10 storm... 🤣 On a serious note, I'm using a Bresser BX-5 Pro tripod with fluid video head, as well as a mid-size Leofoto ball head, and just ordered a nice Lensmaster RH2 gimbal... Can't go wrong with one of each! 🥳 Keep up the smooth work, stay safe.

6:23 the sense of humour is at its best! :)

Cheers to that 🍻

This was entertaining, I don't need or plan on buying another tripod I rarely use the one I got, LOL I use my Rode Vlogger kit and selfie stick more 😀

I loooove these videos, Chris is a great host! hahaahaha

Jordan needs to do a video version.

I thought this was about gags until I read the word tripod.

Great video Chris and Jordan

Three way head is good for simple astrophotography with a tracker.

Panoramic heads? Video heads? Would have been interesting to learn about those too, I know next to nothing about them.

Still using a three way head. After I got frustrated with my lower end manfrotto ball head either slipping. Or even worse seizing up in the cold.

For a compact gearhead the Arca-Swiss D4 is hard to beat, though not cheap. I suspect that the reason they didn't cover fluid heads is because it's those are such a large and complex topic unto themselves that it just wouldn't work as an addendum to this video. Also, a proper "professional" fluid head like an OConnor makes that "expensive" Wimberley look like a cheap trinket.

Hahaha an introduction killed me! LoL 😂

I've used a cheap 3-way with a 90-degree shift, permanently attached to a cheap tripod since 1983. It still works as well as it ever did, which is not great. And it's been relegated to use as a field antenna mount for amateur radio. As I rekindle my interest in photography and videography, I think it's time for a decent tripod with a nice ball head. Its flexibility and simplicity suit my needs--which are as yet uncertain.

A ball head that locks on tight without shifting, but also one that doesn’t get struck and rolls smoothly is really important. Skip any that doesn’t. It’s really not worth the trouble

Hi Chris and Jordan, great content, great videos. I have a query totally unrelated to tripods and accessories, could you please suggest a good cine camera (or cameras) and accessories like mic, tripod, monitors, for beginner filmmakers, like where should one start, because there are so many options, so many brands, codecs, Prores Raw or Braw, that it is very confusing. And the budget is super tight. Thanks in advance.

Best intro ever lol

that problem you mention around 2:30 about locking the screws and then the camera moving about a millimeter or so resulting in you losing your original intended composition-- i face that a lot especially when trying to shoot moon pictures. i am zoomed in all the way to 300 mm, the moon is there nice and pretty at the centre, i lock the position and as soon as i take away my hands the camera moves ever so slightly off centre thus cutting off my moon. if i wasn't as zoomed in, the problem would probably be manageable but i take lots of zoom shots so its a big issue for me. Lets see if this video answers that problem for me....

Thank you! That gimbal head appears to be exactly what I need for my 200-500mm lens. My current tripod drives me nuts, so I usually leave it at home.

As usual, this is all about photographing landscapes and critters. If you're shooting products, architecture, or precisely composed studio setups, you need to be using a gear head, period.

you missed out the best geared ball, and best all around ! the Arca Swiss D4, incredible

Looks like new tarmon 150-500mm lens in the video , please do a review vs sigma 150-600mm sport and tarmon 150-600mm g2 , for sure you will have a lots of views

Funny intro 😂

It would have been nice if you also showed that you can make large adjustments on the geared head than just the micro adjustments. If this was a viewer's first impression of a geared head, it would look like a hassle to use. Even if you may have covered it in your other videos, it would have been nice to show the convenience of an 'L' bracket on a camera so that the camera doesn't have to hang off to the side of a ball head. Don't assume the viewer of this video has already watched your other videos, so don't be afraid to repeat basic information like the 'L' bracket. This maybe the one and only video a viewer watches about tripods.

switching lensens on gimbal doesnt matter, put a line on the food with a marker and put the same marker on the gimbal. Then on the next lens, put with the marker the spot on the foot next to the spot allready on gimbal. And you get near instant balanced point ;)

I'm leaning towards a 3-way because I'm a huge nerd and it seems like the sort of fiddly that I like.

not just choosing the right tripod head, but also the release plate. is it proprietary, small, big, interchangeable and so on

It's less boring and more overwhelming. I know it's important...but there's a sea of options out there

I haven't used a ball head in years. If all you need to do is level the camera, a levelling base is as good anything and cheaper than alternatives. I use a geared 3-way head when I need precision. I also have a fluid head, but good fluid heads are expensive (mine is a Miller CX6) and bulky - I would not normally use one with a still camera.

so if there were gimbal heads available with a way to attach the camera directly with other smaller lenses, then that should be a great pick for both photo and video?

at 1:50, after 7 shots, I'm like.. If I continue watching, tomorrow is going to be a tough day in hospital!!

3-way head is probably my favorite

I have an old 1980s vintage Velbon tripod which has a 2-way head. It can move from landscape to portrait orientation too, but it's not a proper 3-way. Tripods are probably among the most universal and neglected pieces of gear in general. Maybe the wider adoption of IBIS and advanced IS has sort of driven this decline in use of tripods in general.

Do you use the levels on the ballhead or the camera level lines

You had me at three-way head

Ooooh Tamron 150-500 review incoming?