Gitzo gt1542t which head

Would prefer smooth head with minimum creep but light at the same time. I am not young anymore and am looking to reduce the total weight I have to carry. I would suggest a Sirui K or preferably a K, mostly because you're packing a lot of lens and camera there. You can use the smaller K if you use the collar mount to better balance the lens and camera, because ballheads are typically rated with the weight straight over the ball - when you put on a long lens or move to portrait mode the weight rating goes way down and creep sets in.

Plus, the smaller the ball, the more difficult it is to move the camera smoothly and set friction properly. So my advice would be to look at the KX first 44mm ball diameter, 1. The Sirui G is close in size to that, but the big sticking point is the pano base on it, and on most ballheads. The Q3T shaves this off to just a knurled ridge which provides the necessary clearance.

You can use a bigger ballhead on the T, but you'll have to extend the center column beyond the collapsed legs to completely fold them - increasing stored length by about ". So you can get compact, or you can get inexpensive. Are you sold on the Gitzo, or would you be interested in spending slightly less on a traveler-style CF tripod so that you can spend about the same on the ballhead and tripod combo? For what you're packing, I'd strongly consider something like a Feisol S or a Sirui that would give you a much more stable tripod without a lot of weight that still will pack down to about 16" long All good suggestions.

I have not bought the Gitzo T yet but so far I have not liked any of other competitors. I know this lens may be a bit too much but rest of my lenses are much smaller. I plan to use a lens mount bracket with this tripod to balance it better. Are they all smooth and fold completely well? I'll give an example from my own experience. It works OK with my biggest combo, a D90 with f5.

A 33mm ballhead will be better, but not by very much. A mm ballhead is a much better choice for this combo, because of the severe imbalance you get from the off-center lens torque. The RRS ballhead is a great one, but pretty small. Any of these smaller ballheads will hold your biggest lens if the weight is well centered and you're in landscape position. They just won't be as easy to operate and will creep at odd angles. Of the trio you've suggested, the Q3T is the best fit for you if you go for a traveler style tripod.

I'm not sure about the compatibility of the RRS head with a traveler style tripod. In any case, The Q3T is very well proven. The PRO will be a very good head that will fit as well, but I'd try for as much ball diameter as I could If you were mounting a smaller camera body than the 5D with smaller lenses, I'd say the mm ballhead would be OK; but if this is to be your primary tripod going forward, go as large as you can. Is it just the price? Why everyone is buying RRS plates? Are they chaeaper than other brands or lighter or?

Ballheads are low-production high-precision machined items and as such command high prices in the photo market. However, it's well known that several respected brands Markins, for example have these items manufactured in Asia to their specification The ballheads manufactured by PhotoClam, Sirui, Benro, and Feisol are directly marketed by the Asian manufacturers at lower prices for the same performance as many of the mid-range European ballheads. However, this price differential is disappearing as they gain reputation and market share.

PhotoClam, for example, prices its ProGold series of heads roughly the same as Markins' equivalents. However, in your case, there is no ballhead out there that offers a bigger ball in a smaller enclosure than the Q3T - and in terms of features and quality, the Q3T is missing nothing - other than being a touch more difficult to remove from the center column than a ballhead with a large-diameter pano base.

The Q3T will accept standard ARCA plates; just make sure that there's a hollow in the plate in the right position to allow the anti-tumble safety pin in the mount clamp to engage the plate. If you're not too worried about the camera slipping out more of an issue with lever-style clamps than screw clamps , the mount clamp will work just fine with a plate that doesn't have this hollow.

RRS is an absolutely top notch company that makes beautiful equipment. For those who use their tripods and mount plates a lot, especially L-plates, RRS gets the job done reliably with well-fitting fitments. They're also beautiful pieces of machinery, and machinery appreciation is a big part of the enjoyment of this activity. However, you don't need the ne plus ultra if you're not a heavy or specialized user; an ARCA plate, after all, is simply a dovetail-machined piece of metal - which the Pacific Rim has shown it can produce as well as anyone else.

I'm using Markins Q3 Emille with Gitzo Traveler but I must admit that Q3 Traveler would be more suitable for the tripod due to smaller a more adequate base diameter. Do remember that you must buy a plate that will fit your camera! I think it is a great price for this tripod. Now I need to buy the ballhead and the plates to go with it. With all the good help I am getting I am leaning towards Makins Q3t unless I get real good data to go with some other product. Regarding plates; looks like they are camera body and lens specific.

There isn't much price difference between RRS and Markins plates. Not sure what would be the deciding criteria between the two. There isn't, really. For the most part they're interchangeable. And both are excellent. So if you're getting a Q3T good choice , just add a Markins plate. No worries. Will do. It is easy to slip the plate into the ball head. More difficult is putting the camera on the tripod without a plate:. I love plates.

I think it's a perfect travel combination - a little pricey, but it seems small relative to the other Leica kit costs. I use the 40 on a series 2 Gitzo when not travelling. I think the 30 is a perfect match for what you have and it has plenty of strength for an M9 and any lens you want.

Personally I prefer the clamps on this one, I have the liitle screw knob clamp on mine I have the RRS L plate too but you can order these heads with a variety of clamps or with a traditional platform if you like.

You can of course interchange clamps if you want at some point. Note that the BH30 retains the panning base which the 25 does not have. However it still fits fine in the folded Gitzo Travellers. For what it's worth, I can highly recommend the Markins Q3 Traveller. Very compact, light but highly efficent. It will hold my D3 plus a 70 - 2. It's extremely well made and very smooth in operation, and has a 38mm diameter ball. You can also get the Q3T in black.

The Arca-Swiss type of clamp is now an almost universal standard. You can get a small plate for the bottom of your M9 and you won't even notice that it's there. Its by far the easiest, least fuss quality ball head I've ever used and is simply a delight with the M9. Streets ahead of Gitzo's own heads and the other traditional designs like the Markins.

In my experience anyway. Its so intuitive, fast and natural, as well as light and tough and accurate. I use a medium sized Leitz large ballhead from the 's. Still works fine. Never slips. Not too big. Good in a lot of situations. Ballheads as a group are usually much more versatile in the field than other types of tripod heads. I would probably go with the BH for a series 1 though. It uses arca swiss new slide fix plates witch are smaller than the standard arca swiss plates and fit the m9 well.

Big advantage over the RRS's is the ballhead is flipped over. The panning mechanism is placed above the actual ballhead witch is really easy to use. Just level the ballhead and your ready to go. No need any more to level the tripod. You can post now and register later. Perhaps the biggest change in the GTT is how the legs fold up. With the center rapid column fully extended, the GTT legs folded completely over the tripod head, meaning that the head needed to be very narrow to not prevent the legs from folding parallel to each other.

The GTT legs fold up to just under the top plate as shown below , allowing a larger tripod head sizes to be used. Another new model, the Gitzo GTT , has a shorter center column that again becomes surrounded with the folded legs.

Here is a closer look at the travel tripod specs with a full-sized GTLS included. I know that I'm comparing apples to oranges with the full size tripod, but it is helpful to see what you gain or lose with the smaller size. Aside from the smaller size, weight loss is the GTT's positive gain over a full size tripod.

This is a little tripod, but it is very impressively solid for its small size and weight. Adding to the strength and rigidity of the GTT are Gitzo's 6x carbon fiber legs and center column. According to Gitzo:. The performance of this multilayer design is unique and inimitable thanks to the advanced aerospace production technology and the exclusive inner structure. Fully extended, this tripod holds my lbs. I always have my weight available and this weight has proven to separate the great tripods from the good ones.

Just because it can hold that weight does not mean you should put that much weight on the tripod. Gitzo recommends using this tripod for lenses up to mm with mm being maximum. Of course, wind can change everything. Vibrations with the rapid column extended are much exaggerated and Gitzo's dual recommended maximum focal lengths is perhaps accounting for this issue.

Since I don't use the rapid column very often due to the increased vibrations , I removed it from my GTT. The weight savings is only minor and the vibrations are not different from the installed-and-retracted column, but I frequently shoot close to the ground. Due to the center column ground clearance issue, removing the center column is necessary to use the tripod in its lowest shooting position — without reversing the center column and shooting with the camera upside down.

As always, your tripod head height must be added to the tripod's height. I usually leave my tripod legs in the more-conventionally folded orientation with removing the top plate and head entirely being a sans-center-column compaction option.

The advantages of using the center column are the additional height it provides and the quick height adjustment it makes available adjusting one rapid column lock is faster than adjusting three leg locks.