expensive ballhead for scope?

[Kevin Mac]

I currently have a Manfrotto 486 ballhead for my Swarovski 80 scope. I like the idea of ballheads for their compactness and the light weight of this model. I'm not too happy with the friction of this one though. It locks very well but it goes to floppy too easily. I'm considering going for a better ballhead in the Markins or Arca- swiss range. Does anyone have strong feelings or opions on spending big money on ballheads for bird scopes? Would another setup be better?

[Bill Atwood]

I am not familiar with the 486; I have used an Arca Swiss B1 on occassion. For me ballheads have too much freedom of movement to use effectively. If they had a panning handle they might be easier to use, but when it comes down to it they are made for still photography.

On the other hand the stability of the ArwcSwiss plate clamping mechanism is fantastic. I would love to see it used on a light weight videohead like the 701 rc2. IMO the scope/head interface is the weakest link to a stable image.

[Kevin Mac]

Well, I bought the Markins MK-10 Q ball. I just got the adaptor plate for it from Really Right Stuff so I haven't given it a lot of use yet, but it sure is sweet. Yes, expensive ballheads make great scope mounts. No, your spouse will not be happy. Yes, you must go out birding more. At least I must to avoid losing my hearing from my wife asking me to again tell her how much I paid for it....

[Doug Greenberg]

I currently have a Manfrotto 486 ballhead for my Swarovski 80 scope. I like the idea of ballheads for their compactness and the light weight of this model. I'm not too happy with the friction of this one though. It locks very well but it goes to floppy too easily. I'm considering going for a better ballhead in the Markins or Arca- swiss range. Does anyone have strong feelings or opions on spending big money on ballheads for bird scopes? Would another setup be better?

I own an Arca-Swiss B1 which I use for photography, and I used to use it for my spotting scope. Frankly, I don't think this is the ideal technology for a scope. Even if you use the tensioning knob to eliminate "flop," the location of the controls, right on the ballhead, is simply not ergonomically convenient for birding, in my experience. One thing that helped was adding--at even more expense!--a Gimbal-type accessory called the Wimberley Sidekick. This allowed for total fingertip control over the scope (I bought the thing for photography, however).

I think the best tripod head arrangement for a scope is a video fluid head like the Bogen 3130. It provides smooth movement, has a convenient handle, and costs only about $75. That's what I use on my scope currently.

[allanjder]

I just ordered a Arca Swiss B1 head, and will be getting a Sidekick also. I wanted to try it with my digiscope setup. A Kowa 82mm Fluorite, zoom eyepiece, camera attachment and Nikon D70. I have also added a red dot finder. Let you guys know how it works.

[Hanno]

I recently bought a Manfrotto ball head, but went back to the Video head; I found the ball head very impractical for digiscoping (my 2 cents worth:-)))