Review on 📷 Enhance Wildife and Sports Photography with GKJr. Katana Junior Telephoto Lens Gimbal Head by Paula Turner

There are many good things to say: The outer (main) support frame is very rigid and nicely finished and designed. The finishes are great and the overall look is elegant. But the "bird swing" (an inner mount that pivots about a tilt axis and includes an Arca Swiss-type mount at the bottom) is too flimsy and unable to withstand and absorb torsional loads even at 1/4 of its maximum rated load. I placed about 12 pounds of hardware on the Arca rail and balanced it according to the instructions, then found that the inner mount wobbled violently for many, many seconds when tapped. Wobble, wobble, wobble. The tripod it was mounted on was not a problem. It's massive and doesn't vibrate much, as does the Katana Junior's external mounting frame (with its cool space-frame design). The vibration (mostly rotating in the horizontal plane around the vertical axis) was traced back to a very thin bracket that attached the "bird swing" to the tilt axis. It's just too thin to resist twisting. So either get the Arca Swiss version right on this axle (and forget about the bird swing) or try a different design. In addition, locking the pan axis causes a shift to the right, which requires re-framing. You need to start by shifting the center to the left, and as you tighten the pan lock, hope it rotates the correct amount to center the frame on your subject. The tilt axis doesn't seem to have this problem, at least not as obviously. This device is light, beautiful, elegant, but to my disappointment it will not do its job.