Downside up ball head

[stever]

The Arca Swiss Pl-S seems like a good idea, but availability is iffy, and i can't find any hands-on review.

wanting a lightweight ballhead with panning for packing and travel, i decided to turn by BH-40 downside up so i could have the rotation on top

to make this work
   - the tripod needs a removable stud (or an adapter would have to be made with a 3/8 female thread in one side and 1/4 female in the other)
    - the ballhead needs a threaded stud sticking out - i replaced the clamp on the BH-40 with their BH-PF 40 platform (there are 2 anti-rotation tabs on the "camera" side of the head which get in the way of just screwing it into the tripod)

i used a Velbon carbon fiber tripod which has a 3/8 threaded hole on the bottom of the center column, turned the center column upside down, screwed a 3/8 to 1/4 reducer bushing in and screwed the "top" of the ballhead in

then put another 3/8 to 1/4 reducer bushing into the "bottom" of the ballhead and screwed in a RRS compact clamp

now for panoramas, i can put a level in the hotshoe, use the ballhead for level, and pan with the rotation (the numbers are upside down but i never used them anyhow)

if you want a vertical pan, the drop notch works as usual

so far, i can't find any downside (if you're using a heavier tripod and ballhead then you might as well use a panning clamp)

the only resevation and caution is that the center post of my tripod does not have as many threads as i'd like -- but this will be remedied by a new tripod pretty soon

any good reason why ballheads shouldn't be made this way to begin with?

[Per Ofverbeck]

...wanting a lightweight ballhead with panning for packing and travel, i decided to turn by BH-40 downside up so i could have the rotation on top

...any good reason why ballheads shouldn't be made this way to begin with?
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Well, no reason, really...  

Novoflex actually makes a series of "upside-downs": [a href=\"http://www.novoflex.com/english/html/products.htm]http://www.novoflex.com/english/html/products.htm[/url]
(click your way to the "Magic Balls")

They´re extremely well made, but far lighter than the Arca.  However, they don´t have the rotation degree-of-freedom for panning.

[abh]

any good reason why ballheads shouldn't be made this way to begin with?
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

If I've understood you correctly, you can accomplish pretty much the same thing by adding the PCL-1 to your BH-40 (assuming you're using a bracket on your cam), so I suspect RSS would prefer you to purchase that, rather than encourage you to turn the BH-40 upside down.     It seems like the PCL solution would be a lot easier to deal with in the field.
[a href=\"http://reallyrightstuff.com/rrs/Customkititems.asp?kc=BH%2D40%2DPCL&eq=]BH-40 PCL[/url]

[stever]

yes, RRS would much rather sell the PCL

i have a PCL which is large, heavy, and somewhat awkward on a ballhead the size of a bh-40 (it's appropriate to a larger ballhead and tripod that you don't want to carry very far)