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I have not had enough of a play with this head to give a feedback on its performance yet but I recieved it today and I can say I am quite happy with the service of the people at acratech

I orderd my head last week (wednesday from memory) and at a nice and cheap 29usd delivery it arrived today... My god this ballhead is light!!!

What ballhead did you get?

MHD follows me to to order an AUB (Acratech Ultimate Ballhead),
Please quote you're from D70Users Forum and they will take care the rest.
I talked to the owner the other day and he promised he'll tried his best to help our Aussie's members and his customers.

Hmmm, I sent an email to acratech.com requesting a quote for postage for the AUB to Australia and got no reply so Markins got my business instead. Too bad.

petal666 wrote:Hmmm, I sent an email to acratech.com requesting a quote for postage for the AUB to Australia and got no reply so Markins got my business instead. Too bad.

If you let me know beforehands then I can pull him out of bed, the Acratech company is a single owner and he's a photographer, most my emails and conversation over the phone with his wife and sometime with him.
He agreed to deal with me and giving 10% discount on his products.
Back with Markin ballhead, I'm talking with them on last Friday and today, once again try to secure deals for members, who's interesting in buying those pro's heads and some of their plates.
I have a Markin 20, perhaps next week a new RRS BH55Pro will lands here with another BH25, so 4 heads in total will display in my "play room" and four Gitzo tripods with one brand new mono pod G1588 CF just landed few hour ago from our friendly Mr Poon, GeoffC one of our members had a chance to touch and looked at it.
I forwarded your inquiry to Poon earlier, will get on the phone with him tonight and keep you posted.

Birrdog/MHD,

Birddog as you know I am in the market for a Ballhead. I await with great interest from you and also MHD on your review of the 'Acratech Ultimate Ballhead' product. The 10% discount is appealing when ordering through you.

Also of interest is your dicussions with Markins, Korea. My interest is with the M-20 (NQS). I am going to forget about dealing with the 'Nikonians' even with shipping out of Virginia, USA as against Germany. Frankly speaking, I don't think they can be trusted.


Cheers,

No worries Fozzie

There is one thing I can tell you without even using it yet...
its LIGHT!!!!!

I'll post some pictures soon in general...

MHD,

I and many others will watch for your review, together with shots in the near furture.

Just to keep the juices flowing, what rating out of 10 would you give it on opening the package?


Cheers,

pics are here:
http://potofgrass.ath.cx/gallery/tri

oooh thats a VERY hard question...

Keeping in mind that these were Bloody expensive items so you expect them to be good..

on a scale of 1-10 where 10 is "OH MY GOD, you MUST have one", and 5 is "Meh... its ok"

I would say:
Ballhead: 8
Tripod 9

this is without using them for thier intended purpose

The motion on the UBH is unbelievably smooth... I only played with the markins head at the meet briefly but I would put the smoothness of motion equal with that...

Best thing about the head:
Cost and weight... (unbelievably light)!
But this is the first ball head I have owned.... I did briefly use a Velbon head... this walks all over that!

Kristine,

For the "AUB" 'Acratech Ultimate Ballhead' refer to the following website:

http://acratech.net/miva/merchant.mv?Sc ... t_Code=ubh


Cheers,

MHD

Cool Pics!


Fozzie

Thanks for the link...mm...not cheap...My whole tripod set-up was much less than this..(am I just cheap? )

fozzie,

Have a good rest, sitback and relax, It will be heading South to you, so you can put it on real test on your G1327 as I promised earlier, Perhaps early next week, is it OK?

With the D70 & kit lens or small lens you won't feel much difference, same as stress on the head and legs BTW, I got my Nikon DR-6 right angle viewing attachment and a Canon Angle Finder C same as sirhc5 from the same shipment today from Poon, more toys to play this week-end.

With my early play, the Markin provides more smoothly motion then the AUB, without the weight of camera and lens, I did not have time yet, will try another time.

What is the weight and cost of the Markins?

Birddog,

I will take you advice and sit back and relax. Any more relaxed at the moment and I would be asleep. No hurry birddog, in your own time.

Birddog, I think Santa Claus came to your house today, with all the goodies from HKsupplies and Acratech.

Cheers,

Kristine wrote:MHD

Cool Pics!


Fozzie

Thanks for the link...mm...not cheap...My whole tripod set-up was much less than this..(am I just cheap? )

Kristine,
Once you're in Sydney, visit my play ground with all the toys around, give me a yell.

hehe... Playground

Whatever you do dont play with the 70-200VR... you will catch a bad case of lens lust!

MHD wrote:What is the weight and cost of the Markins?

Here it's:

http://www.markins.com/2.0/eng/ballheads.html

Cost US$370.00 = AU$480.51 + $20.00 freight.

Ship from South Korea.

If the Markin people happy to let me get in their game, I'll have more toys from them for our members try first buy after.

The Markins M10 is good enough for me.

[url=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v313/petal666/Lens/IMG_0698.jpg]

click[/url]

That's a Canon 10D, Battery Grip, Simga 120-300f2.8 and 1.4x teleconverter at a weird angle and no movement what-so-ever. Very happy with my purchase.

Kristine,

If you are comfortable with your tripod setup, that's all that counts.

Should you want to update from overseas supplier (s) now is the time to do it as the US Dollars against the Australian Dollar is trading @ 0.78. It has not been at this level for a long while. I recently purchased a 'GITZO' G-1327 from HKsupplies via Birddog and saved about AU$650 over RRP in Australia. Also managed to escape paying GST.


Cheers,

Petal - wow, I can't believe you got it in that bright ferrari red!
The tripod head is detracting from all that lovely stuff you have attached to that kwanon!!

yes very sexy... Pity its not Nikon!

Kristine,
Once you're in Sydney, visit my play ground with all the toys around, give me a yell.

I am sure I will have a ball when I visit you Birddog. I may end up placing a gigantic order through you!

Cheers
Kristine

Kristine wrote:

Kristine,
Once you're in Sydney, visit my play ground with all the toys around, give me a yell.

I am sure I will have a ball when I visit you Birddog. I may end up placing a gigantic order through you!

Cheers
Kristine

Kristine,
Thanks, but don't let your hubby know that you're coming to visit me, He might not want you too cos he has to work more time to help your lust

A few questions if I may:

Birddog: What is the price of the AUB to members?

MHD: Why is there a nasty green cast on the pictures of your lightweight head and legs?

Anyone: Are the kirk style plates easy to get (and cheap)?

Everyone: Aren't you all outraged that MHD has had to wait so long for his L plate? What can we as a community do about this abhorent situation?

Cheers
Dean

Birddog114 wrote:

Kristine wrote:

Kristine,
Once you're in Sydney, visit my play ground with all the toys around, give me a yell.

I am sure I will have a ball when I visit you Birddog. I may end up placing a gigantic order through you!

Cheers
Kristine

Kristine,
Thanks, but don't let your hubby know that you're coming to visit me, He might not want you too cos he has to work more time to help your lust

Kristine,

If your husband reads this exchange out of context he may be worried about more than the money.

Cheers
Dean

hehe... Is that the green cast of jelousy...

dont be... have not used it yet... I'm hoping Kirk will send me the tracking number tonight for the L plate..

The Kirk L plates are slightly cheaper that the RSS plates (about 10USD less)

No L plates are cheap... IMHO they are horribly overpriced...

I'm hoping it is here by the weekend...

(The ttipod has been sitting in my lounge all week... fully setup at max height... waiting for use!)

What about the non-L plates (- plates?). I don't think I have the stomach to wait for an L plate.

Cheers
Dean

Birddog: What is the price of the AUB to members?

10% less the quote price

Anyone: Are the kirk style plates easy to get (and cheap)?

Kirk is cheaper than other brand about US$10-15.00 if I'm not wrong, they have stock but shipping out from then might take from 7 -15 days depends on traffic. Their design is not quite beauti and prcise like the RRS, RRS L bracket cost US$140.00

Deano wrote:What about the non-L plates (- plates?). I don't think I have the stomach to wait for an L plate.

Cheers
Dean

If you use standard plate then you won't be able shooting pano correctly, mostly pano shooting prefers in portrait mode.

Or if you prefer standard plate then you don't need a head with dove tail, just use other standard QR plate on many tripods and mount your camera direct to it.

But surely the ballhead allows the camera to be tilted to portrait mode?

Cheers
Dean

yes but much easier to get 90 degrees by just flipping...

Deano wrote:But surely the ballhead allows the camera to be tilted to portrait mode?

Cheers
Dean

Yes the AUB let you swing the camera into portrait mode/ the L bracket hs two dove tail and allows you to shoot in portrait or landscape instantly with QR clamp.

Deano wrote:But surely the ballhead allows the camera to be tilted to portrait mode?

Cheers
Dean

but then the pano will not match up correctly.

petal666 wrote:

Deano wrote:But surely the ballhead allows the camera to be tilted to portrait mode?

Cheers
Dean

but then the pano will not match up correctly.

Thanks petal666, you're exactly right! I forgot to mentioned it, that why the L bracket for, and it needs for seriously panotaker

Grumble Grumble!
Kirk emailed me last night to tell me that my L plate will not be shipping until monday

Hmm... I wish they would have told me that earlier!

MHD, you must be going nuts waiting for the jigsaw to be assembled

petal666 wrote:

Deano wrote:But surely the ballhead allows the camera to be tilted to portrait mode?

Cheers
Dean

but then the pano will not match up correctly.

Thanks guys.

My initial reaction to this was to think that the problem was getting the horizon to be level in the frame and that this is a problem with either landscape or portrait mode. I have a bubble level which goes in the flash socket to fix this problem.

Then I engaged my brain and realised the problem is that the camera is not pivoting around the centre of the frame while it is tilted over in portrait mode and that is why the shot do not line up properly. Doh!

[brain disengaged again]
Cheers
Dean

MHD wrote:Grumble Grumble!
Kirk emailed me last night to tell me that my L plate will not be shipping until monday

Hmm... I wish they would have told me that earlier!

I order for fozzie one RRS L bracket and it was shipped last Tuesday, should be here anytime, I knew you're rush but what can I do?

Kirk product are good but their service is not lightning fast same as others that's my experiences as I bought from them before and ditched all their products for RRS and Markin.

*shrug*

It's teaching me patience, zen and Karma...

*breathe in* *breathe out*

Its all good... Everything will be here in time for my sisters wedding and New Zealand...

MHD wrote:*shrug*

It's teaching me patience, zen and Karma...

*breathe in* *breathe out*

Its all good... Everything will be here in time for my sisters wedding and New Zealand...

One thing I can tell you with almost absolute certainty: NZ isn't going anywhere in the short term.

L plate is in the air... Has left Indianna... and on its way here (bout time!)

MHD wrote:L plate is in the air... Has left Indianna... and on its way here (bout time!)

I hope it has a good map and valid passport.