Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Have used the Benro BO-0 ballhead for couple of months. Very happy w/head. Did a lot of research between Dolica, Manfrotto, Vangaurd ballheads, on line and in stores. I had already purchased the Benro A-198EX tripod after a lot of research on the same tripods from the companies mentioned. I chose the Benro tripod even though there were no reviews for it yet & did not see it in any stores, it was a bit of a leap of faith, but based on the feature set & specs I ordered it. (Benro site has more info than amazon) After receiving it and seeing how well the tripod was made as well as how it operated etc, I had no problem w/choosing the Benro head as well (it had no reviews either). The head is smooth as silk through all its movements. The panning is great if needed, although w/the tripod it also has panning capability & it is very smooth and can be adjusted to be as stiff or loose as needed. One reason among others for choosing the Benro over others is that the actual ball is machined metal as opposed to phenolic resin, which is just a fancy name for fiberglass. I am tired of everything made of plastic. Some of the manfrotto heads in the price range of $150.00 had phenolic balls in them. I thought that given compression to lock the ball, that a metal ball would hold up better on clamping loads as opposed to resin. Also read some complaints for the balls as well as some tripods was that they got wet & started to get sticky with the plastic balls and some leg collars. Another complaint of some of the heads or tripods was the different size screws for mounting ballheads to tripod etc. Again Benro did a great job w/a long reversible double thickness screw (meaning it fit either 1/4" or 3/8" thread size setups) to handle any thread diameter head verses tripod. Read of a few people that had their camera's literally fall off tripods because of the bolt or head failure. I shoot w/Nikon 300s, & with 18-200mm zoom for example, and the whole setup mounted w/lens extended, it is easily held by the Benro head in any position. In fact the drag adjustment will hold head firmly even without locking the main lockdown knob. The 3 knobs on head are very comfortable rubber feel & turn w/a precise feel to them. I also prefer Benro's screw lockdown plate setup (swiss arca style) rather than the 2 separate procedures to release camera plate that some use- it just works without issue, when its locked it's not going anywhere, and when you want it off it unscrews as needed. It also has a nice rubber size & feel knob on it as well. Benro claims the Swiss Arca style plate will work as well on their head, but have not tried yet to confirm. If you research the various ways the Benro A-198EX tripod head mount works , you soon see that it can position the ballhead and camera setup in nearly any angle radially and in a 360 degree 3 dimensional sphere of direction if needed which is a very clever design, I thought. In any position the ballhead & camera setup ends up either horizontally, vertically, upside down and anything in between the ballhead holds the camera tight. It is rated by Benro to 17.6 lbs holding capacity. Can not find any downside to head yet.
Great product & design.
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BENRO B-0 ballheads offer manual drag control, smooth independent panning control, and positive locking knobs and quick release mounting plates. All housed in a precision-machined black anodized aluminum body. The Benro Universal Quick-Release System is designed to the same specifications as the Arca-Swiss system, and is also compatible with other similarly designed quick-release systems. Accurate 360-degree panoramas can be easily orchestrated using the graduated panning scale for accurate image alignment. The separate lock and drag adjustment knobs help to avoid confusion when working fast. Compatible with 0 series tripods like the Benro A-057M8.
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