Ball & Socket tripod head

[keef_uk]

For xmas ill be getting a lovely pair of 15x70 binos and obviously for longer observing sessions going to need a good tripod. For one reason or another I have given up on my current scope setup, but still have the sturdy tripod with the CG-3 mount.

I was thinking of removing the mount and attaching a tripod head on the frame and making a pretty sturdy bino tripod.

I have seem numours tripod heads on the market but quite like the look of ball and socket ones as I believe these will give greater freedom to move around the sky?

Does anyone have any opinions (good or bad) on these heads?

Cheers

[philsail1]

Hello "Keef_uk"

I bought a "Kood" heavy duty ball & socket head to replace the fluid filled head on my Velbon 7000 heavy duty video camera tripod.

(click to enlarge)

As you can see, it holds my Skywatcher 90mm Maksutov oK, and it does give infinitely variable movement on all axis - up and down, side to side, and basically any angle in between! However, even though this head was far better than the original fluid filled head

(which would not hold the scope in any position above about 45 degrees to the horizontal

- no matter how well I balanced the scope), I have found several drawbacks to the Kood Ball and socket head.

The main drawback I have found is that I have to tighten the ball & socket clamp quite tight in order to hold the scope at a steep angle, and this tightness then prevents me from making any fine movement. If I have the clamp just loose enough to move the scope easily, the scope can suddenly "flop" over to any angle - depending on where the balance point is at the time. This can be a bit disconcerting to say the least. Also, I have had to add a long handle to enable me move the scope. Without the handle, it was very difficult to move the scope with any smoothness at all - unless I slackened the ball clamp to a point where the scope was dangerously "free" on the ball joint. Of course the movement was then lovely and fluid in any direction, or angle - but I did not dare let go of holding the scope, otherwise it would immediately fall over in the direction which it was weighted off centre - which could be anywhere!

I have got used to the Ball head now, and it suffices - that's all I can say. I think that although these ball and socket heads do give all the movements you could want - at any angle, they are primarily meant for holding cameras - because a camera has a small squarish body which lies close to the centre of the ball head, making it less likely to "fall" over, which in turn would allow you to have the head fairly slack.

A ball joint may work with your binoculars, but personally I think you may find this type of head a bit uncontrollable in use. Also, I find that when I've located something and come to tighten the head, when I let go of the scope to allow someone else view the object, I find the scope has moved enough to put the object off centre - or even out of the field of view if I'm using a high power eyepiece.

The head cost £43. There are better heads (which I think would be more suitable for holding binoculars) on the market, for around the smae price. Whilst I cannot recommend any particular one head, I'm sure you will soon receive plenty of advice here. Perhaps it might be an idea to have a word with "Steve" from "First Light Optics." He may be able to recommend something suitable.

Well, that's my experience "Keef_uk,"

Regards,

philsail1

[Neon]

I've not used a ball and socket head, but I imagine that they'll not be the best for astonomical observations. Camera tripods, although very handy, are really let down by their heads. I replaced the one on my tripod recently and the difference is pretty outstanding, mainly due to the ease of use.

Tracking objects with a camera head is a case of untighten, line up, tighten, observe, untighten, line up, etc. That's not too bad with binoculars since they have a low magnification and a wide FOV, but with a scope it's a pain. I think that as Phil has outlined, with a ball socket, that can be even worse, especially on an unbalanced head.

There are specialist tripod mounts for bins that you can buy to help balance the rig and improve the comfort of the viewing, but they tend to be quite cumbersome, so if portability is your aim you might be disappointed.

A couple of suggestions I would make is to ensure that you get the biggest/tallest tripod you can and to check the tilt of the head. You'll want a tall tripod to 'get under it' in order to view objects directly above you and keep the eyepieces level with you eyes. Otherwise you'll have to contort your body to observe and that can be a real pain, literally.

The tilt of the head is important too. Some tripods won't let you move the head all the way back to view directly above. You can sometimes get around this by mounting the optical device in reverse, but it's not ideal. Here's how I used to mount my scope in order to get a greater amount of elevation on my scope:

The tripod is actually quite large, and only the head let it down. It's basic pan and tilt model, which is fine for binoculars, but no so good for telescopes.

Personally I'd recommend a good quality, heavy camera tripod. Most come with pan and tilt heads and that'll be sufficient for your binoculars and maybe a light scope. But if you want to take things further you'll need something more specialised, but that can wait.

HTH

Mark

[Helen]

I'd recommend the Horizon tripod - brilliant! Jamie used it for big binos, I've used for smaller binos, and its great with a PST too! and all for the price of a reasonable tripod head http://www.firstlightoptics.com/proddetail.php?prod=Horizon8115HDtripod

Helen