Extremely cheap video head for 'B' cam?

J

Joshua_G

Well-known member
Having a fairly decent tripod & video head for 'A' cam, and having few decent tripod legs for stills, I'm looking for a very cheap video head for 'B' cam, which will be stationary - that is, it will have no movements at all during shooting.

There are very cheap Chinese video heads and leveling bases on eBay, like these heads: http://www.ebay.com/itm/111985434478?ssPageName=STRK:MESINDXX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1436.l2649 and http://www.ebay.com/itm/381763624172?ssPageName=STRK:MESINDXX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1436.l2649 and http://www.ebay.com/itm/112135839330?ssPageName=STRK:MESINDXX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1436.l2649 and http://www.ebay.com/itm/322173291333?ssPageName=STRK:MESINDXX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1436.l2649 and that leveling base: http://www.ebay.com/itm/282213121364?ssPageName=STRK:MESINDXX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1436.l2649 .

It looks like they'll do the job in the above situation.
Your comments and ideas?
 
If it's not going to have any movement than you can consider photo heads (i.e ball heads, gear heads). You can put these on a lighting stand or tripod legs if you want some more stability. Benefit of a ballhead is that it can hold more weight for the price and can be leveled in any direction. Hydrostatic ballheads in particular can hold lots of weight.
 
Thanks.
Well, there isn't going to be any camera movement at all during the shoot, however there will be initial 'framing' (pan & tilt) of the scene prior to the first shot. I found it much easier to have a real video head (with a leveling base, when using stills tripod) - you level the head quickly and accurately once, make the initial needed pan & tilt and forget about it. With a ball head, changing the 'pan' & 'tilt' positions while maintaining horizontal level is very cumbersome, a pain in the …
 
After much research the cheapest head I found worth buying was the Manfrotto mvh500ah. Its not totally overkill for a lockoff and it has good enough pan tilt/counterbalance that it could be used for serious work in some case when I need a travel tripod or a good enough head for a B cam op, also it natively uses the same plate as my Sachtler and other Manfrottos. And since it's not cheap Chinese junk I can't test it may actually hold its value if I need to sell it.

I tried all of the cheap heads at bh one day and this was the only inexpensive one that fit my criteria. I miss adjustable counterbalance, but at least the fixed counterbalance is at a good level for a small camera or my a camera stripped down.

That said all those you linked my be fine for lockoffs, but it's unlikely you'll be able to test ahead of time so rely on the reviews and expect it to be worth nothing used. Most of them look like Manfrotto knockoffs actually. Even my cheap plastic tripods that came free with random purchases do alight locked off, it's just a pain to adjust with fine tuning and I wouldn't put anything but a bare mirrorless camera on it.
 
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The manfrotto is a great head, I use two of them almost all of the time. Joshua what camera is the B-cam that you will be using on the head? I'd be very curious about the set of sticks that you posted they look like they should hold up pretty well but it's tough to tell. All of the heads look as if they COULD be good, the trick as Noah mentioned is you really won't know until you have them in your hand. I'd say if you are going knock off just ensure that the weight recommendation is overkill for the camera, this will hopefully makeup for any quality issues or inferior plastics used in the products.
 
Thanks.
The 'B' cam is Canon 80D, possibly with a cage and a 7" external monitor + external mic.
All the Chinese video heads I looked into support the weight, at least on paper. However, I decided to go for the Manfrotto MVH500AH + the Chinese leveling base. Going for a Chinese video head could turn out saving money, and it could be wasting money.
 
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