Tripod head options

[Boo53]

I couldn't give anywhere near as much detail as Arthur, that's a really good post.

I have, however, gone the way of getting a manfrotto head with an arca Swiss plate.

I have 1 manfrotto tripod which is great to set up, and the head really suits some styles of shooting, but the manfrotto plate is a pain as all my other gear is arca Swiss.

I particularly have a peak designs capture clamp on the shoulder straps of all my backpacks and love them but they need a specific type of arca Swiss.

My heavier tripod is a Benro which is 10+ years old and the head I had on it came apart in Central Australia a few months ago (try finding small screws and springs in the red dirt at sunset 10km the other side of Kings Canyon)

I found a new head that suited my needs but it was a manfrotto and I really didn't want to have 2 tripods with the manfrotto plate and the capture brackets with arca.

I found Manfrotto made the head that suited me with an arca plate, which is good, ordered it and like it, but the arca Swiss model was $300, the identical with a manfrotto plate was $200.

I got my Manfrotto tripod in Alice Springs about 5 years ago, at Harvey Norman. I was just browsing whilst my wife was shopping and saw the tripod. Picked it up and didn't look too bad. Checked the price and it seemed remarkably cheap. Wandered outside of the store and did a Google search on the model and could not get anywhere near the price, so clearly someone had put the wrong sticker on it. Whether I bought it knowing it was a mistake or someone else who didn't know the right price bought it wasn't going to make any difference to HN so I bought it for about $100 under the cheapest anywhere else.

So I guess I'm even with Manfrotto in the long run