Lightweight/Traveling Tripod

[Kayaker72]

I've spent some time the last couple of mornings and nights looking into as much as I could find about ball heads for the GT1542T that I just purchased. I made the table below to help me keep track of the different physical characteristics of the ball heads I was reviewing and the Joby, just as a reference as I own it with my gorillapod:

Ball Head	Price ($-Jan 2013)	"Rated" Weight (lbs)	Ball Diameter		Ball Surface Area	Ball Head Weight		Ball Head Height		Base Diameter
			(mm)	(in)	(in2)	(g)	(lb)	(mm)	(in)	(mm)	(in)
Small Ball Heads
Joby BH1	$40	6.5	25	1.0	3.0	150	0.3	63	2.5	42	1.7
RRS BH-25 LR	$175	8.8	25	1.0	3.0	221	0.5	66	2.6	33	1.3
Gitzo Traveler Series Ball Heads
RRS BH-30 LR	$275	15	30	1.2	4.4	324	0.7	75	3.0	41	1.6
Markins Q3T	$310	65	38	1.5	7.0	375	0.8	89	3.5	50	2.0
Mid-sized Ball Heads
Arcatech GP-s	$430	25	38	1.5	7.0	400	0.9	98	3.9	53	2.1
RRS BH-40	$375	18	40	1.6	7.8	479	1.1	76	3.0	53	2.1
Markins M10	$370	100	44	1.7	9.4	490	1.1	98	3.9	62	2.4
Large Ball Heads
Markins M20	$410	110	48	1.9	11.2	555	1.2	102	4.0	68	2.7
Arca-Swiss Z1	$410	122	54	2.1	14.2	680	1.5	101	4.0	--	--
Kirk BH-1	$385	50	54	2.1	14.2	850	1.9	115	4.5	74	2.9
RRS BH-55 LR	$455	50	55	2.2	14.7	862	1.9	94	3.7	74	2.9

Of course, the "rated" weight is random as methodogies for determining the weight are often not known and seem to vary considerably between manufacturers. Also, base diameter doesn't include knobs and levers so it isn't representative of the total diameter of the ball head.

I found several who regarded ball size being a critical feature in terms of load bearing and stability. In fact, looking at the above table, regardless of the brand, the consensus seemed to be that people liked their ball head as long as it was 38 mm/1.5 in in diameter or greater. Which makes sense as that is about where you start seeing rapid jumps in the ball heads surface area. For example the RRS BH-30; everyone really likes (loves?) RRS, but I had trouble even finding very much online about the BH-30 and what I found was fairly evenly split between those that upgraded/thought it slipped too much and those that thought it was a great hiking/travel ball head. But as soon as you cross that 38 mm diameter line the significant majority of people liked whichever ball head they owned. Matter of fact, I only recall reading a few nit-picks (one thought the BH-40 sagged a little, another didn't like the tension in the pan control of the Markins, a few thought RRS weren't as smooth, etc). No real complaints.

Anyway, this wasn't an exhaustive evaluation, but I thought I'd share. It seems like there are several good brands out there but the secret is to get a good enough brand and a ball that is 38 mm or greater.

As I mentioned in my last post, I am focusing in mostly on the Markins Q3T or the RRS BH-40 as a combination of ball head size, general regard in what I read, and weight. There is still an off chance I'll get the BH-30 or even the BH-25 if I want to save weight and money. After all, I have taken several 30 second exposures with the Joby BH1 on a gorillapod that have come out just fine and I am sure the BH-25 and BH-30 are big improvments, especially mounted on a gitzo.

Thanks...Brant

Edit--it took me awhile to get the table in here and I lost most of my formating. Does anyone know how to get a formated table into a post? I tried uploading an image, but I seem to be limited to ~20KB, which isn't enough file size.