ARTCISE Low Profile Camera Tripod Ball Head, 34mm All Metal CNC Machining Panorama Ball Head with Two Quick Release Plates for Tripod, DSLR, Camcorder, Telescope，Max Load 33lbs/15kg

Bought this head for a tabletop tripod because of its physical size and price. After al most a year of using both on the ground with a DSLR and 500mm f/4. Even with that kind of weight this head will lock in place and hold steady, for what it is. I use this to reduce fatigue when laying on the ground and waiting for long periods. Giving me a stable platform for shooting when the action starts. Certainly this head isn’t made for that kind of weight. However, thIs head works well for my needs it is compact and light weight. The build quality is that of a much higher end head at a far reasonable price. Overall I am very happy with this ball head. For smaller physical size head this is now my go to ball head, I will be ordering more.Panning that size camera and lens it is very smooth. A lighter camera and lens could be a bit more sticky to pan using just the head. And the ball release knob isn’t perfectly smooth as found on $500 heads. But for the price and size I am impressed and perfectly ok with both. Thats the only remote down sides I can find with this head and they are minor at best. If this head will hold a large full frame DSLR and a 500mm f/4 it will most certainly hold your rig.

I have the 60 series of artcise, it came with a humongous head which is additional heavy and built quality is leaser than this one. Love it for its size, quality and functionality…

The quality of the ball, base (rotation) marking, positive lockdown and ease of use are all high quality. The ball mount comes with two camera mounts that fit easily and tightly into the ball mount, another nice touch. I have an older “Arca Swiss” style mount and mounting plates that I purchased for my 35mm (film) SLRs years ago for the Manfroto with heavy Bogen ball mount aluminum tripod. This is where a star was lost. Although the listing for this mount did not mention “Arca” style mount it also did not completely describe the dimensions of the plate mounts that came with it. They are larger than my Arca plate and the two are not compatible for use in my Bogen mount nor will the Arca fit this ball mount. Oddly, the bubbles in the liquid levels are tiny compared to the fluid in the level

It has a high quality touch and feel. The build is solid. It only takes 1/3 of a turn to go from unlock to lock unlike some other products when you have to make several turns to tighten the lock. It locks solidly. When it is unlocked, the ball moves freely and easily, you want to keep your hand on the camera when you unlock it. it is far exceeded my expectation for a ball head this price. I compared it to two others ball heads in this price range and this one is better all aspect.

It feels very high quality. I have vanguard bh-50 and felt very small size compared to this one. But not that heavier than bh-50. It feels like it’ll hold very secure. I got this as star tracking wedge since my load is very light like 7-8 lbs (just wide angle milky way).BUT my first copy, i wasnt able to tighten the pan and had to return it. Just make sure you got a good copy.

I bought this because the head unit has two levels on it for making sure the camera was set level. The two levels o n this head are waaay off! Not even close. Completely useless. Fortunately, I found out that my camera has built-in levels. Otherwise I would have needed to use a regular carpenter's hand level to level this thing.Another bad point is that the mounting pad does not set evenly on the camera unless you play with it to find where it will mount more level in its slot. So you have a bad level to begin with, and then the mounting pad throws off the level even more. Ugh! Therefore, in regards to purchasing this head for the ability to hold a camera level, it has failed miserably. In regards to the swivel head, it works fine. And the panning of this head is incredibly smooth. Much better than I expected. Attaching the pad to the head when it is on the camera is also tricky. Be careful! I thought it was tight, but when I grabbed the camera it almost fell off. When tightening the mount to the head, be surer to jostle the camera while tightening so you know it is secured.Because the main feature for this head was the levels, I would say that this unit is overpriced for a regular head. If you are only after a smooth panning head, this will work. Just be sure that you mount your device to it tightly.

This is an awesome tripod head for the price! Very easy to use and after several years of use still works great!

This is the third ARTCISE ball head I that I purchased. I originally purchased the carbon fiber ARTCISE tripod and was so impressed with the quality that I decided to buy the 52mm version of the ARTCISE ball head for that tripod. The quality matched that of the tripod. I liked that ball head so much that I then purchased this 36mm ball head about a year ago for a tripod my son gave me and just decided to buy yet another of the same 36mm ball head for my hiking tripod. I don't have nothing negative to say about any of the ARTCISE items I purchased.