I have a couple of old B1's. They work great but I hate ball heads. You cannot adjust one aspect without screwing-up the other aspect. Try to level the horizon but keep the front/back orientation intact! I shoot landscape and nature subjects with an SL66. I have used my B1's when necessary over the past few decades. Necessary meaning when I need a second tripod/camera set-up. My mainstay is an old Gitzo Rationale pan-tilt head. I think that the Gitzo G2271M is the best head going. Light weight magnesium. I talked a friend into getting one so that I could check it out. Stellar! I'm going to get one soon.
http://tinyurl.com/3pbxz7New B1 ball heads have a design flaw. The lock for panning action (below and left of the main large ball tension knob) is a lever now rather than a round knob. The problem is that to unlock panning action, the lever extends below the bottom of the ball head so if your tripod head happens to be larger than the bottom of the B1, the pan lock lever hits the tripod head platform and won't unlock!
If you are locked into a ball head, and still thinking about a B1, switch your thoughts to Novoflex. Or RRS.
IMHO, Jim On Apr 5, 2008, at 3:54 PM, Thor Legvold wrote:
As might have become obvious, I'm taking stock of my current photographic reality, as well as updating old ideas and techniques together with some gear.I'm up to 'tripods' on my list. I have (what I think is) a nice tripod, a Gitzo 'reporter' in enamled aluminium. I bought it new abour 15 years ago and it still works great. It has an offset ball head on it that matches the legs - i.e. not too heavy, not too light. On second thought, it might have been ok for the (relatively lightweight) Bronica, but it may be on the light side for the 6008.Before I run out and buy a B1 (are these still the standard, even today?), I wondered if anyone has any experience with other ball heads. Light is good, as if it's too heavy I'll never bring it along. But it needs to be sturdy enough to support the 6008. I went to the local camera shop and had a look, they have Novoflex and Cullman, but not Arca Swiss. The Magicball idea looks cool, is it usable in practice? Will I notice any significant difference between an Arca Swiss B1 ball and an equivalent Cullman (or even an RRS BH-40)?I might manage without a new head as well, but in order to do that I need some sort of quick release system, as screwing the camera on and off the head isn't going to work in real life more than once before I get fed up and leave the tripod at home. :-)Underneath the 6008 I notice that there's a trapezoidal shaped metal bit with dovetailed edges. Does this camera come with a built in QR plate, or is this for something else? I couldn't find any info in the manual or brochure. From what I can see on the internet, 'everyone' uses Arca Swiss QR system (or the RRS version of the same), and one should choose this. Is this true? Does Rollei have it's own QR system? Does it work? If so, where can I find a matching baseplate to attach to the head? If I can get the QR thing sorted, I can try out the tripod as it is and see if the existing head will be ok, or i I should think about getting a slightly bigger/ stronger one.Cheers, Thor --- Rollei List - Post to rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx- Subscribe at rollei_list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'subscribe'in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org- Unsubscribe at rollei_list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with'unsubscribe' in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org- Online, searchable archives are available at //www.freelists.org/archives/rollei_list
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