The ultimate tripod head?

[timparkin]

Most exciting news from Photokina (apart from a the new Portra 400 formulation) is possibly the ultimate ball head from Arca.

It's a geared three way head but you can unlock all of the controls and have a totally free 'ball head' like view..

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_hAVtpP4knOY/TJuuV ... wissd4.png

It sounds like it will be about £400-500 pounds and about 700gm

To me it sounds like the ultimate combination of weight, fine control, precision and free movement.. We'll see ...

Tim

[Dave Tolcher]

Oh dear, your right that does look good. However good the cube looked it was so far out of my price league that I didnt look at it. This is in 'look at' territory which is bad news. To be able to effectively use one head would be great as I gitzo p&t for LF and ball head for digi mainly due to the poor fit of l brackets in the gitzo adapter plate for AS. This would solve all that at a stroke and be lightweight too.

[craigmagee]

And I just bought a 410 to replace the head I left with the spare legs in Spain..

[timparkin]

And I just bought a 410 to replace the head I left with the spare legs in Spain..

Don't worry - it will be worn out by the time this is available in the UK

[craigmagee]

Lol - dont tell me things like that!! Will these ever make it to the UK?

[Thingy]

And I just bought a 410 to replace the head I left with the spare legs in Spain..

Don't worry - it will be worn out by the time this is available in the UK

Ooooooo, so tempting. At only 700g and priced at £400-500.... I rather fancy the Arca for my LF stuff and keep the Acratech G2 for my small and medium format cameras.

I wonder if Joanna can get a special discount.......

[numnutz]

I have recently won a Manfrotto 400 on the auction site am at present awaiting delivery.

However I did find this that looks really good until you see the price...

http://photoclam.en.ec21.com/MultiFlex- ... 21844.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0yTFNkC9Z0

nn

[Dave Tolcher]

Its a copy of the Arca C1..... which you can buy at a special price of 1195 +vat at the moment !

[numnutz]

Its a copy of the Arca C1..... which you can buy at a special price of 1195 +vat at the moment !

So at around 900 Euros it could be considered to be a bargain then...

nn

[BarryWilkinson]

Looks very interesting but I could not find any details of the carrying capacity. I also saw elsewhere that the quick release clamp is not RRS, Kirk... compatable.

Barry

[Thingy]

There is also the marginally lighter (and less flexible) d4m, details of both below:

http://media.the-digital-picture.com/In ... s-2010.pdf

[Emmanuel Bigler]

Hello from France

I was at the Photokina in Cologne last week-end and I spent quite a long time at the Arca Swiss booth discussing with the Vogt family.

It is too bad that the official press release for the d4 and d4m heads does not specify any figure in terms of acceptable load for those heads.
However, an interesting point in their design is that there is no overhanging part that could yield some unwanted flexibility. The supports of the rotating axes are U-shaped. Not like many classical 3-way heads.
Taking into account that the Z1 ballhead is rated for something like 60 kg, and that a classical GIZTO "rationnelle" 1570m 3-way head is rated for 10 kg, I would place the load capacity of the d4 and d4m between 10 and 60 kg
Well, not kidding, I have just manipulated the two d4/d4m heads with no load, so I think we need so time and get some real feedback about how those new heads behave under, say, a 8x10 camera.
An interesting detail of the design is that the two axes cross at a single point. Well, from a geometrical point of view, this is equivalent to a ball head, but with of course a different feeling.

Since the Korean copy of the Arca Swiss cube is mentioned, it should be mentioned that this device not only is a couterfeited design, and hence cannot enter the European Union, like anything counterfeited which is not protected by a technical patent, but duly registered as an original design & model ; but the Korean device copied a patented technical feature. Too bad... therefore the device will have really hard times to enter the US territory as well.

Our friends across the Atlantic have different regulations regarding counterfeited designs. To put it shortly, if a counterfeited design does not infringe any technical patent valid in the US, the product can enter the US with a minimum of legal paperwork.
The typical example is a copy of some famous Swiss watch, engraved at the back "made in China, Japanese movement". Such a watch is banned for import in the EU and Switzerland as a counterfeited design, but can legally enter the US : "eh guys, everybody can see immediately that this is not a Swiss watch, and no patent is infringed", this is the US spirit of the law.
But if a device infringes a technical patent valid in the US, then of course import will be blocked.
So, in order to save time in legal contorversies with future copy-ists, Arca Swiss has added a sticker saying "patented" to their new d4 and d4m products.
It means that it will be hard for future copies of those heads to enter either the EU or the US....

[BarryWilkinson]

I did not mean my post to sound quite so negative as it does. I think the head looks very interesting but I wish that more information was provided in the press release.

Barry

[Emmanuel Bigler]

First I would like to apologise for several typos in my (long) message above; I hope I've corrected all of them now.

Regarding Barry's question about quick-release plates :
the quick release clamp is not RRS, Kirk... compatible

You have two versions of the Arca Swiss clamp
The traditional
The flip-lock(TM)

The traditional clamp can accommodate various plates with dovetails of similar shapes even if they differ in width by a few tenths of a millimetre.
The flip-lock(TM) requires a fine-tuning of its actual width in order to precisely clamp various plates by various manufacturers, if the width differs by a few tenths of a mm.

So if you use the traditional Arca Swiss clamp, you won't see that various plates differ in width. Except if they differ by, say, 10 mm in width.

If you use the flip-lock(TM) clamp you'll simply have to fine-tune the clamp to the actual width you are using. There is a setting screw dedicated for this. This means that it is not practical if you have a collection of dovetail plates of various sizes, because you don't want to change the fine tuning of the setting screw any time you change plates !
But if you have plates from the same manufacturer, I mean : a serious company delivering plates with a tolerance better than one tenth of a mm, then no problem you set the clamp to your particular plate width, and you are all set.

The last version of Arca Swiss clamps have in fact two dovetails.
- the classical width, very cloe to other manufacturers' dovetails
- the new slidefix(TM), narrower and of the same width of the Arca Swiss rail used in A/S view cameras.

The kind of dovetails significantly smaller than others is the small slidefix(TM) plates.
Classical plates "A/S-like" plates are still supported, of course.

[George Hart]

Many thanks for taking the trouble to post this information, Emmanuel.

George