Manfrotto N8 Video Head

G

ggrantly

Veteran
Hello Listers,

Has anyone put there hands on the new N8 offering from Manfrotto? No snickering or snark regarding Manfrotto please. Actually, what interests me about this head is it has a flat base, which I need. And if it performs at least a bit, it might be good enough for my limited need.

If anyone has a recommendation for something with either a flat base or a 100mm bowl, with decent performance, and a mid-range price, I'm all ears.

Probably I don't want to spend FSB-8 money.

TIA,
Grant
 
ggrantly said:
Hello Listers,

Has anyone put there hands on the new N8 offering from Manfrotto? No snickering or snark regarding Manfrotto please. Actually, what interests me about this head is it has a flat base, which I need. And if it performs at least a bit, it might be good enough for my limited need.

If anyone has a recommendation for something with either a flat base or a 100mm bowl, with decent performance, and a mid-range price, I'm all ears.

Probably I don't want to spend FSB-8 money.

TIA,
Grant
Click to expand...

I have not seen the N8 but it looks great on paper!
 
ggrantly said:
Hello Listers,

Has anyone put there hands on the new N8 offering from Manfrotto? No snickering or snark regarding Manfrotto please. Actually, what interests me about this head is it has a flat base, which I need. And if it performs at least a bit, it might be good enough for my limited need.

If anyone has a recommendation for something with either a flat base or a 100mm bowl, with decent performance, and a mid-range price, I'm all ears.

Probably I don't want to spend FSB-8 money.

TIA,
Grant
Click to expand...

If you didn't require flat base and were willing to step up to a pro level, the Miller Air is excellent value for the money. The head can be bought for $650.00 and for under $1,000.00, the head can be combined with the Aluminum legs or at about $1,150.00 with the Carbon legs. I recently shot for two weeks on a documentary in South America with the Air and my Carbon legs, about 8lbs combined and really put it through it's paces, it's the real deal, a genuine Miller head, which is just slightly below my Sachtler, at much less money and most importantly for me, much less weight for flying. It counterbalances up to 11lbs and is perfect for under 10lb camera packages. The only flat base pro level head that I know of is the Really Right Stuff FH-350 but at $1,916.00 probably out of your budget range. I am not going to snark about the new Manfrotto, I will just enourage you to look at some of the test videos of it in action on YouTube already and you decide if you can work with that level of quality. In my experience, there is not a flat base tripod head that will let you perform a perfectly smooth and steady diagonal pan on a 200mm lens, short of the RRS head mentioned and I have never tried that one, just assume at close to $2k, it could accomplish that. I shot a lot of stuff and at 200 and 300 mm, tracking subjects all over the beaches and jungles in Brazil with the Miller and it performs perfectly.

Miller-Air-Fluid-Head.jpg
 
I haven't tested the N8 yet, but Benro's BV4 head is probably the best sub-$800 head I've used. 6 step counterbalance, 4 step pan/tilt drag for smooth and controlled moves, illuminated level, and it has a combo 75mm bowl/flat base, so you can use it on sticks or drop it straight on a slider, etc.
 
OP here. I have two great quality 100mm tripods and other gear that takes a flat base. If the video head has a flat base option, I can use half balls to mount and level up on the 100mm tripods. I know there are adapter rings to get from 75 to 100mm, but I have had very poor success with the several I have purchased so have sworn them off absolutely. The Sachtler FSB-8 at merely $1575 can convert to a flat base. I might have to choke it up eventually. $650 for the Miller sounds great, but it defeats my purpose to continue to use funky 75-100mm adapters. So my search continues....

G
 
Dang. Just for kicks, I just checked out the specs on the Miller Air. In fact, it can convert to 3/8" thread, WooHoo.

Now a question, will Manfrotto plates work with this head?
 
ggrantly said:
Dang. Just for kicks, I just checked out the specs on the Miller Air. In fact, it can convert to 3/8" thread, WooHoo.

Now a question, will Manfrotto plates work with this head?
Click to expand...

No, I tried, they are using their own proprietary tripod plate and width unfortunately. Non-standardization in the video industry bones us again. I have to say though, Miller really nailed the pan hadle, it's thicker and just more ergonomic than the one on my Sachtler, wouldn't think it would make much of a difference but it does in real life, the head, for the price, is excellent. Flat base tripod heads, you are pretty much looking at consumerish toys other than that $2k RRS one.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top