Arca-Swiss Monoball Z1 Review

Arca-SwissLast year I bought a Gitzo GH2780QR [1] ballhead with an additional (medium) lens plate for my 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. The concept of this ballhead was/is ingenious. By using the big knob/dial you could change the friction on the ball. This enables you to pan/rotate the camera and lens very fluently, and when you applied enough friction, you could let go of your camera, and it would not move or fall down, and you'd still be able to pan/rotate the camera. All in all very safe and handy.

But there were some things that annoyed me;

• The knob/dial was too big, and it didn't rotate as easy as I wanted it to. At first I thought that it would loosen up over time, but it didn't. Especially when you firmly locked the ball (to prevent it from moving during long exposures), it was hard (twice as hard when I had cold/frozen fingers) to loosen it up again.
  I ran into this when doing some HDR's with relative long exposures. The initial 2 or 3 images were sharp, while the rest showed more and more movement blur. It seemed that the camera an lens (a Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8) slowly started to point downwards.
• The medium lens plate for the 70-200mm lens didn't detach very easy from the quick release on ballhead. As a matter of fact, I had great difficulty to remove the lens from the tripod on many occasions. The reason for this is the additional fail-safety on the quick release mechanism. You have to press a lever to slide away a pin underneath the plate. When the pin moved out off the way, you should be able to remove the lens from the ballhead..... Well, I wasn't. And the strange thing is that the small camera plate and the lens plate weren't that different.
• The standard camera plate that came with the ball head is a relatively small square (1.5" square plate). When the camera was mounted on the ballhead with this plate and there was just a little friction on the ballhead, the plate would move under the camera. There was too little contact between the plate and the camera to stay in place (the momentum was too big).
  I tried a larger plate (rectangular), but this had the same behaviour (even it was a little less).

Since the Gitzo ballhead wasn't that cheap (especially for an amateur photographer), I doubted a long time whether I should get me another better ballhead. After long consideration, and thorough online research, I decided to get an Arca-Swiss ball head after I had sold the Gitzo GH2780QR.

Note that me selling the Gitzo doesn't mean that it's a bad product. It just didn't work for me. That's all.

Arca-Swiss Monoball Z1

Arca-Swiss Monoball Z1The Arca-Swiss Monoball Z1 (with Flip Lock quick release) is a ballhead for life. I know, it's a cliche, but the thing can hold up to a gazillion kilograms (over 50kg), and it's far more solid than the Gitzo. It's also a bit heavier and bigger.

Weight: 680gr / 1.5lbs
Ball diameter: 54mm
Height: 100mm
Load capacity: 55.3kg / 122lbs

The knob/dial (which was a point of frustration on the Gitzo) feels excellent. You don't need too much force to totally lock the ball. The additional indicator numbers on the dial also helps you remembering friction settings. In my case; I set the dial on 6 and I can let go of the camera (with my 17-55 lens), and it won't move by itself, but I can still move it quite easely by hand.

There's also a seperate smaller knob for rotating the ballhead around its axis (as with most ball heads), but it's not visible on the image above.

There are some drawback though. The first is it's price. It's NOT cheap, but then again, it's a ballhead for life, and you get what you pay for. Compared to the Gitzo is twice as expensive, since it doesn't come with any camera or lens plates. These are optional extras.

One good thing is that the Arca-Swiss plates can be purchased from other manufacturers. There are several companies selling Arca-Swiss compatible plates. So apart from the ball head I had to get two extra plates. One for the camera and one for the 70-200 lens. Since the original Arca-Swiss plates weren't available at the store, I was recommended Wimberley plates.

Camera plate

Wimberley P-5 camera plate

The camera is fitted with the Wimberley P-5 plate. It is a rectangular plate with a rough surface. The rough surface makes sure that the camera stays properly mounted on the plate. If your camera supports it (my Nikon D300 doesn't), you can use additional smaller screws to mount the plate even better. I tried applying some sever momentum to the camera and plate, but it wouldn't move (or turn), so I guess that it's there to stay with only 1 screw.

The fact that this plate is bigger than the Gitzo (1.5" square) plate, also makes it easier to place your camera on a flat surface while switching lenses. With the Gitzo plate, I always needed to make sure that it wouldn't topple over.

Lens plate

Wimberley P-20 lens plateThe lens plate for the 70-200 is pretty straightforward. It's a Wimberley plate P-20 with an additional screw (sold separately), since the plate itself only comes with one screw (don't ask why). Once it's mounted it serves its purpose as it should.

The First 5 Minutes

This is a bit of a weird 'chapter'. As a technician, I don't read manuals. Only when things go seriously wrong, I might grab (or look for) a manual. Unboxing and starting with the Arca-Swiss Z1 ballhead wasn't any different.....

After attaching the camera plate to the camera I tried to mount the camera on the ballhead. Which didn't work. It didn't work since the flip lock quick release lever wouldn't open. Since I thought that the mechanism might be too tight I started to adjust a tiny bolt (nr. 1 in the photo below) on the ballhead. I guess I loosened it a bit too far, since the entire top sprang off (nr. 2 and everything between 1 and 2). It seems that the locking mechanism uses 2 powerful springs...

It took me a while (about half an hour) to get it back together. After that I looked for the manual (1 piece of paper), which clearly explained on how to open the quick release mechanism....

Update on Friday, February 26, 2010 at 15:50 by Willem

Also, check out my blogpost about the compatible Really Right Stuff L-Plate for the Nikon D300.

Comments

[Colleen]

Those 2 extra screws on the Wimberley camera plate are NOT for mounting to a camera. They are safety screws that when used with the Wimberley QR clamp will prevent the plate from sliding out of the clamp in the event that the clamp loosens up. See this video for details: http://www.tripodhead.com/products/details-page.cfm?product=safety-stop-video I plan on purchasing both the Wimberley QR Clamp and the camera and lens plates once I get my new Z1 (which is now on backorder).