The one I have bought is the adjuste Giga, my first comments would be that it is a beautifully crafted piece of equipment that has the downsides of its qualities. It is error proof and allows fast operation, but:
- it is a bit difficult to use the head with different lenses since you need to unscrew two screws to modify the position of the camera relative to the rotation axis,
- the lack of locking mechanism for the Z axis rotation worries me a bit as far as images sharpness goes, I will need to test more to see if this can be a problem or not in the field.
Other than that, the lack of native compatibility with the Arca swiss standard is annoying:
- there is not obvious way to attach the camera easily and quickly to the head short of screwing it onto it each time and the size of the screw (M6 it would seem) is not compatible with any standard RRS clamp,
- there is no obvious way to attach the head to a tripod with an arca swiss type clamp, other than adding an arca swiss plate under the 360precision head, which adds weight, complexity and one more interface that could become loose at some point in time.
Finally there is no documentation whatsoever coming with the head, and that is regrettable for a product this price. The support has been responsive so far, but a few well written pages would help.
Adding to what I wrote above, I am finding that there is a major problem with the 360 precision giga head for my rough usage.
- off the shelf, the attachement of the camera (D3x) to the head is un-usable since you need to screw the camera to the head each time, and there is no easy way to align it well. You can be 100% sure that the camera is always slighty off axis. Besides most of us are using RRS brackets on the cameras all the time and those are even more difficult to screw on to something,
- I have bought a RRS B2-LLR II clamp, a downsizing busher to change the size of the threaded hole, and have tried to screw this on the 360 PRecision head. Unfortunatrely, because of the rubber material applied to the head, it is:
- very hard (read impossible) to align the clamp well with the head arm,
- impossible to screw the clamp tight enough that it doesn't rotate when a heavy camera is attached to the clamp.
This for me is a major issue with this head since we have a super precise and sturdy 360 PRecision head, but no reliable away to mount a camera to it. If anyone has a good solution to this, I am all ears. Without one that head will be un-usable for my applications.
Cheers,
Bernard