So yesterday I had a client for the day and we went out to a location I really like to cover the basics of exposure.

I’d brought my tripod and Arca Swiss B1 ball head – which I might stress, has been sitting on a shelf for the past 6 years because I found it too heavy for traveling with.

Arca Swiss B1 Ballhead - Useless

It worked in the house; I was able to demonstrate how it worked, got in the car, got to the location and found that the tensioning dial on it was completely locked, while the ball is completely free.

I’ve tried everything in my power to unlock the dial, but I’m still left with a ball that flops around and is now completely useless.

Why I’m writing this post, is because I don’t rate reviewers or review sites. If you look through the web, all you’ll find is site after site saying how terrific this ball head is, and then go on to say that it has a problem with locking up, as if it’s a tiny, inconsequential issue. Stinking reviews, where clearly the author hasn’t done his homework, has copied stuff from other reviews and has probably only lived with the item in question for a few days (if that).

I met someone once who wrote for gardening journals. He told me he wrote reviews to which I asked him “Do you ever write a bad review?”. His answer was “no”, because I’d never get anything else to review ever again.

It’s like critics of plays, books, music….. why listen to some complete stranger about their view point, when you don’t even know if they’ve written any books, music or plays. Same with reviewers of camera gear…. if they don’t show you some stellar images to back up their reputation, I wouldn’t listen to them.

This Arca Swiss Ball Head has a major flaw, and it’s not something I would be prepared to live with if I were away from home. A locked up ball head in the middle of Bolivia, or even after a 4 hour car journey into the Highlands of Scotland is unacceptable.

I love small independent companies that spring up to fill the gap where the large corporations just seem to mis the obvious. One such company that I really like is Really Right Stuff. They make excellent tripod heads as well as custom plates to fit your camera.

I use an Arca Swiss style tripod head/clamp. It’s the most effective way to secure the camera to a tripod. It’s quick, and it’s robust. I have no time to spend screwing plates onto the bottom of cameras and I am unwilling to have a plate fixed to the bottom of the camera if it has the potential to swivel off. The basic plates you get from Arca Swiss are enormous, clunky and they swivel off the bottom of the camera. Really Right Stuff’s plates are specially molded to fit the particular make of camera that you are using. So they become a slightly added feature of your camera, whilst at the same time, don’t get in the way. Oh, and they’re light too. But most importantly, they don’t swivel of the camera. So they’re very, very secure.

I have the L type plates attached to my cameras. So it means I can quickly rotate the camera from Landscape to Portrait mode in a matter of seconds.

One thing that I have found issue with though is the quick release clamps that Really Right Stuff are making. The levers on them are simply too long, and they get in the way if you have a filter holder attached to the front of the lens. It becomes a real hassle to take the camera off the plate, because the lever is obstructed by any ND filters I’ve got on the camera. So I’ve had the lever on each clamp I own machined down to a smaller size. It now means I can mount and dismount the camera from the tripod head in a matter of seconds, whilst not having to take the filter holder off the end of the lens.

Gear should just ‘work’. It should be transparent to use. If you’re having to mess around with it too much, then it’s getting in between you and the photograph. Get familiar as much as you can with your gear and try to remove any obstacles that you can. Photography is an emotional response to your surroundings, and there’s nothing like having to fidget with some gear that isn’t simple to really kill any inspiration that you are feeling.