I quickly need to decide between a Manfrotto 503HDV or a Cartoni Alpha II. It will be used for a Canon XL2. Smooth movement is my main concern. Any help welcome!
the 503HDV is pretty nice for the money. i like that you can tork it down pretty tight to get some resistence but its still a bit crude in other ways. i find it very hard to do "diagonals" for instance. you have to really force and control it to start a pan at a downward 45% angle. almost impossible to do. of course on a 1k head this is not a problem. the 503 is still pretty decent for the money though. i bought it mostly for use on a Kessler pocket dolly and it works fine for that.