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Selecting a Tripod Head
Tripod heads vary by purpose, but many users will want a ballhead. Photographers who travel and/or backpack or hike are going to need additional flexibility over a solid but heavy setup. Specialists (e.g., bird photographers) are going to need additional choices also.
However, my top pick is the Arca Swiss Cube, available at B&H Photo.
Arca Swiss Cube
As of August 2010 (for over 2 years), my favorite head for precision work. Extremely solid.
The Burzynski (below) is still to be preferred for basic simplicity and bullet-proof durability and more rapid adjustment, but the “Cube” offers precision movements which are helpful in framing a subject precisely and/or stitching images together.
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Diglloyd Making Sharp Images articulates years of best practices and how-to, painstakingly learned over a decade of camera and lens evaluation.
Save yourself those years of trial and error by jump-starting your photographic technical execution when making the image. The best lens or camera is handicapped if the photographer fails to master perfect shot discipline. High-resolution digital cameras are unforgiving of errors, at least if one wants the best possible results.
- Eases into photographic challenges with an introductory section.
- Covers aspects of digital sensor technology that relate to getting the best image quality.
- Technique section discusses every aspect of making a sharp image handheld or on a tripod.
- Depth of field and how to bypass depth of field limitations via focus stacking.
- Optical aberrations: what they are, what they look like, and what to do about them.
- MTF, field curvature, focus shift: insight into the limitations of lab tests and why imaging performance is far more complex than it appears.
- Optical aberrations: what they are, what they look like, and what to do about them.
- How to test a lens for a “bad sample”.
Intrigued? See Focusing Zeiss DSLR Lenses For Peak Performance, PART ONE: The Challenges, or (one topic of many) field curvature.
