Hey guys, I have to share what I ran into at work today. I am using a very high performance camera system to measure wheel angles and displacements for some testing on a vehicle. Basically there are 4 high speed cameras that are hung outboard of the vehicle that compare markers on the wheels to markers on the body, then magic/math happens and the relative angles and displacements are logged. There are basically no expenses spared in this system, carbon fiber all over just because. For instance, the system came with a Nikon D3x to take a bunch of pictures of the car once the cameras and markers are all mounted in order to do the initial calibration. No way that body is necessary for the task, but why not!

http://aicon3d.com/products/moveinsp...-a-glance.html

Anyways, each camera is attached to a boom with a ballhead. When working with these ballheads today I immediately got an impression of high quality. The high speed cameras weigh around 2kg each and are hanging almost a meter outside the fenders of the vehicle, and are designed to maintain the same position of the cameras while doing driving maneuvers, going over bumps, and other loads that produce forces so much higher than what a DSLR sitting on a tripod will do. Not to mention the cost of each of these cameras makes most DSLR bodies look like chump change, so failure of the mounting system is not an option. I decided to Google these ballheads when I got home, and found that they are actually really affordable! They use a 40mm ball, but instead of a typical ballhead that has just a few points of contact, the ball holder is actually a machined collet, so the ball is held evenly around the entire circumference. The holder and ball are both anodized aluminum, so the movement when the ball is not tightened down is very smooth. Comes in silver or black. They are made in Germany, so you know it's going to be good . Price is 52.9€:

http://hermann-mechatronik.de/index....010&ta=Details

I am planning to buy a couple of these and machine at least one panning base and a 45 degree top plate to make it more tripod friendly. I know this won't work for everyone, but thought I would spread the word about a very affordable high performance ballhead. If you like to tinker like I do, this may be very worthwhile to look at. If there is enough interest for the parts to make this convenient for tripod photography I may do a run of parts through a machine shop.