Review on Manfrotto Grip Action Ball Head: Lightweight Magnesium Fluid Tripod Ball Head for Content Creation, Vlogging, and Photography by Mohmed Burt

If you shoot mainly in landscape mode (not sideways) then this head is perfect. It features the traditional Bogan/Manfrotto quick release plate system with a new lever and latch. Grasp the handle and squeeze the lever to release the latch so you can rotate the camera. There's a friction setting that controls how strong the twist is when pressed (I leave it completely off). To control the loosening of the handle there is a small strap that can be attached to the handle. I do not use it. The design is almost perfect. Orienting the camera head-on in portrait mode quickly reveals a major disadvantage: when the camera is rotated sideways to capture a doorpost, for example, you can't tilt the camera down. more than a few degrees. For example, I took a portrait trying to grab a hole in the roof, a spot of light on the ground, and a ray of light. I got up a few meters. I've tried tilting the camera down with little success. Since I had to shoot at a 4 second shutter speed, it was impossible to shoot handheld. So I had to go really far and shoot at 24mm instead of 44mm and then crop. An ordinary ball head has a notch for just that purpose - for some reason this head doesn't have one. There is also no rotation/degree indicator. I've updated this review after using the head for a dozen shots for about a month. For general shooting that doesn't require a lot of camera movement, this is normal. The quality is typical Manfrotto - almost perfect. But it's too big, and the limited movement was really annoying on several shoots. I can't point it high enough to shoot the ceiling or wall/ceiling corners, or down to shoot the floor - I'm not talking straight down - but at a decent downward angle. I mainly photograph architectural objects and these angles are important. If I could I would go back.