Giottos MH1000-652 Large Ball Head with Tension Control and MH652 Quick Release
by Giotto
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Category: Digital Camera
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Digital product summary information
Manufacturer: GiottoModel: MH1000-652
Product features:
- Weight: 1.4 lbs
- Load capacity: 22 lbs
- Base with 3/8-Inch socket with 1/4-Inch bushing
- Height: 4.7-Inch
- 1/4-Inch camera mount screw
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Digital camera reviews of Giottos MH1000-652 Large Ball Head with Tension Control and MH652 Quick Release
Digital camera Review: A great all-purpose ballhead that won't cost an internal organ.
Summary: 5 Stars
The Giottos MH1000-652 Large Ball Head with Tension Control and MH652 Quick Releaseis a great addition to your tripod (as long as it can take ballheads) and camera equipment.
If you're new to photography or you don't know what a ballhead is: A ballhead is an addition to your tripod that allows you to be able to move the camera around by turning knobs. It's called a ballhead because the main plate is mounted on a ball. The heads on the $30 stuff you buy at the grocery store tends to be a panhead, which allows you to pan up or down, left to right or back but won't allow you to position the camera at odd angles if required and usually they don't handle as much weight as ballheads do.
Usually, the best of the best ballheads in the market cost $400 or more, which can be too much to invest on a ballhead for many, however, that doesn't mean you can't get a very good ballhead for a cheaper price.
This ballhead is a perfect example. In this review I will talk about my experience with this ballhead while using it on the field.
The Giottos MH1000-652 ball head is sure heavy, at 625 grams it isn't precisely feather weight but it isn't too terribly heavy either. The biggest ballhead offered by Giottos in this series, the Giottos 3000-631 weighs 1329 grams on its own!
The reason this ballhead weighs that much is because is made of metal, the only thing not metal is the plate and the quick release plate. This is what allows the ballhead to take as much as 10 kilograms of weight! That means you can mount a big DSLR with a vertical grip (attached or inbuilt), a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens and a flagship flash on it and you probably would still have weight capacity left from this ballhead.
This is very important, because the more weight it can handle, the less prone to shake the ballhead will be, which won't ruin your photos with blur from camera movement. It's worth mentioning that in order to have a rock solid platform for your camera, you also need a tripod that can take lots of weight and won't rattle either. I recommend looking into the Giottos MTL9371B Professional 3-Section Aluminum Tripod with Flip Leg Locks to match this ballhead with.
The ballhead has three knobs. The biggest of them is to release or tighten the grip of the ballhead, this allows you to move the ballhead to the position you want and once there, you lock it and it will stay there. The second knob is for tension control, it allows you to determine how loose or tight you want the ballhead to move when you release the grip on it. The knob has several bars drawn on it (they look like volume levels) that act as a visual guide as to how stiff or loose the ballhead will move. The third and smallest one is a knob that allows the head to pan, so if you like to create big panoramas, this function will come in handy for you. It also works to move the camera left to right or viceversa without touching the biggest knob.
Since the ballhead allows you to pan around, it has degree markings on it to let you know how much you're moving the camera, starts at 0 and goes to 180 degrees. The numbers run in left and right directions, so you can see the degree markings regardless of the direction you're moving at . The only problem you will find is that the 180 degree mark is hidden below the smallest knob. On the outer rim of the ballhead there is a white line that acts as a pointer along with the degree marks.
The ballhead comes paired with a Giottos 652 plate or main camera mount and a quick release plate. The main camera mount has two bubble levels if you need a guide to know if things are leveled or not. Personally I don't bother with them but it may be important for you.
The nicely surprising part comes with the quick release plate, it has a locking mechanism that won't let you take the camera off the tripod unless you manually release the lock. This is VERY important because cheap heads can actually suffer that the quick release plate snaps off the main camera mount if it has too much weight on it or worse, you touch the camera in such a way you end up dropping it to the ground. That won't happen with this ballhead. The lock is spring loaded, so you need to press it yourself for the mount to release the plate. If there is no camera mounted, when releasing the lock, the quick release plate jumps up to you just enough for you to grab it quickly (It does not blast off like a space ship, relax).
Finally, the quick release plate has a screw below it so you can unfold it and lock the camera against the plate and when you're done, you fold it back again and you're good to go. This is so convenient because usually the cheap stuff requires you to take a coin, your car keys or whatever you can find to screw tightly the plate with the camera, but it's very impractical. The way this head does it is better.
The ballhead mounts on a 3/8" screw, so make sure your tripod has that screw or can use it, if it uses the 1/4" size (the one cameras use for their tripod bases), it won't fit. The tripod I recommended lets you switch between both sizes. On the bottom of the ballhead there is some leather imitation material that seems to be there to avoid slipping while moving in circles.
My experience with this ballhead has been terrific so far. I've taken it to all kinds of environments and it has performed superbly. The most important issue for me was whether it could really stand heavy camera setups without giving up or starting to develop "play" (or when the main mount wiggles around). I've mounted my DSLR with it's vertical grip (which both are made with magnesium alloy bodies, therefore, are heavy) a heavy flash and heavy lenses, from slow long zooms to fast zooms and the camera never had a problem with the weight, no wiggling, to moving down because it was too heavy, nothing. It's been rock solid.
One problem I have frequently is that I confuse the lock and tension knobs when my eye is looking through the camera, sometimes I release the wrong knob and either the head won't move or it moves a lot more than I expected because I released the tension completely or I really locked it tight. Even though visually they are different in size, by touch the difference is not that obvious. Contrary to the panning knob, which is small and I can't confuse that one.
One great advantage I see between using a ballhead and a panhead is that the ballhead is a lot quicker to set and fix in position and to release and move than the panhead. There is also the issue that the ballhead allows you to set the camera in angles the panhead won't.
One feature I'm almost forgetting is that this ballhead has a small slot that allows the main mount to go into vertical position (or portrait orientation) without you needing to switch to a panhead. This is very important because it means you can shoot vertically or horizontally with this head with no fuss. And yes, in vertical position, the plate still won't move despite how heavy things are on it.
Two issues I've come across with this head:
1.- If you're pointing the camera upwards and/or to the side at angles of 45 to 85 degrees, the head will rotate down due to the weight if you do not lock the pan knob before hand. I'm pointing this out because it will introduce movement when shooting with long exposures and it may ruin your shots. So be sure to lock that knob before you actually shoot.
2.- I don't know exactly why but the main mount developed over time play or wiggling. I don't know if it was because of the weight I've put over the head at times and it was bound to happen eventually or because of the bumps and falls the head has sustained from time to time (especially when deployed in the field) that lead to this. Originally I thought it was a quality control issue or I needed to use the warranty and therefore I refrained from writing this review until I knew what the problem was.
Eventually I discovered that the problem was that the main mount had screwed off itself a bit and therefore had the play I'm talking about. Under the quick release plate, there is a hole for an Allen or L wrench, if you tighten it, the main mount returns to its rock solid state and the play is gone. This is worthy to know because you may go through the same problem I did and return the ballhead thinking is broken, but it only needs to be tightened with the proper tool. This is a good thing because it's an easy fix you can do without having to send the ballhead for fixing.
Finally, the ballhead comes with a leather pouch for transport when not used, a small screw base which I think it's in case the head needs to be repaired, warranty and a small card with instructions.
If you need a good ballhead for heavy duty and resistant for heavy set ups, you might want to give a good look into this one. It's simple to use and affordable, which for some it's an important issue: to purchase a good product without spending lots of money on it.
I recommend you check Giotto's official site for the specs of this ballhead so you can compare it against other models.
If you end up going for this ballhead, you won't be disappointed.
EDIT (Jan 15th 2011): After browsing through the manuals of my photographic gear, I found a bag containing a L wrench or Allen key which happens to be the very same tool I mentioned earlier in the review that you need in order to tighten the mounting plate if it develops play. It came with this head but I didn't even noticed it and I stored it with the rest of the manuals and warranties. Another added plus this head provides you.
Summary of Giottos MH1000-652 Large Ball Head with Tension Control and MH652 Quick Release
Large ball head with calibrated tension control knob and quick release. Head has separate control knobs for locking the base and panoramic functions. Includes MH652 quick release.Tripod Heads
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