Giottos Professional Tripod Ball Head

Looking For the Perfect Tripod Ballhead?

Me too, so let me know if you find it. In the meantime, I wanted to report that Giottos quickly sent me a replacement for my broken MH -1002 without much hassle at all. Matter of fact, the company emailed me just to let me know the ball head was in the mail. I’ve worked in customer service before and this kind of support is a true rarity. So, thank you Giottos for supporting the photographers who support your brand.

Now, about the MH-1002 Giottos ballhead. I just returned from a beautiful hike up Mt Dickerman and although this is a small, light and maneuverable ball head, if you’re carrying around anything larger than a Canon Rebel XT digital camera, I wouldn’t recommend it. The quality of construction is fantastic, and the knobs for the socket ball and friction control work well enough. But it’s just too small and if you have a zoom lense attached, just forget about it. Lastly, the stock ball head doesn’t come with a removable plate. This was a bad choice on my part, not necessarily a fault of the head itself. Any and all ball heads should have removable plates. Otherwise it’s just a major pain in the arse to attach and remove the camera.

Below are a few photographs from today’s hike up Mount Dickerman in the north-central Washington Cascades. The trail climbs steadily for nearly 4,000 ft to the 5723 ft summit.

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