Bought a used Cartoni Focus HD Fluid Head... QUESTIONS...

D

DDirector

Veteran
So, I just bought this head used.
I am just wondering, I have never played with it in the store as I've never seen one, so I just went with luck.

Its a nice fluid head. But, I am wondering if this is how it should be or if its just mine....

At the minimum setting, for both pan/tilt counterbalance and drag, it doesn't move very quickly. It requires a little bit of force unlike the other fluid heads I've played around with. I was just at the store and saw the new Manfrotto head, and panning/tilting at the minimum was effortless.

So, I'm wondering if its normal for the Cartoni Focus HD to require a little bit more effort than normal. I dont have it mounted on a tripod yet, so Im not sure how fast you can do whip pans/tilts with it.
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AND, what I noticed is that although it says from 0lbs, it doesn't seem like it. Even at its lowest counterbalance setting, even with just a DSLR & lens on it, when you tilt backwards/forwards, there is a little kick back. Is this a problem others are seeing? Could there be a way to adjust the settings to fix or improve this?
 
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No experience with the Cartoni products, but here are a couple of thoughts:

Weight ratings? Is the head rated for a much larger load than you have? In some heads, the springs are replaceable for load.

Is the head old, or was it sitting in the corner for a long time such that the lube is dried out and sticking?

Grant
 
It says its rated for 0-26lbs. But my dslr is too light for it. It seems as though if I had 2x the weight it would be fine. I don't think the springs are replaceable.. Not sure. But I never heard of it being replaceable.

It looks relatively new. So, I don't think it would be dried out. I unscrewed the bowl part a few days ago, and saw the lube inside, and it looked fine
 
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