Tele head
A tele head , also called a tele swivel bracket , gimbal or "monkey swing", is a tripod head specially designed for photography with long focal lengths .
properties
Tele tilters are also 2-way tilters with a 360 ° panorama axis and a tilt axis.
The special feature is the "weightless assembly" of the camera - lens combination, which is achieved by the fact that the panoramic axis and the tilt axis of the head practically run through the center of gravity of the camera-lens combination, so that there is no shift in weight when tilting back and forth . With the good, infinitely adjustable tele-heads, the fully balanced camera-lens combination remains exactly in the position in which it was released, without any friction or locking of the tilt or swivel axis. This also prevents the camera equipment from tipping over on the tripod that is feared with ball heads .
Due to the particularly smooth and sensitive swiveling, tele headers are ideal for taking pictures with telephoto lenses of fast-moving objects such as birds in flight, athletes , racing cars , etc.
Manufacturer
Tele headers for photographers are offered by various manufacturers:
- Benro
- Eki
- Jobu design
- Kirk Enterprise Solutions
- Manfrotto
- Nill, Dietmar
- Really right stuff
- Sirui
- Wimberley
- Zenelli
Designs
There are basically two different designs:
- two-armed telescopic head with suspension on both sides of a U-shaped swing that holds the camera-lens combination.
- one-armed telescopic head with a suspension on one side of an L-shaped swing that holds the camera-lens combination.
Eki's double head is a special case. This has a central mounting arm to which a swing mount for two lenses is attached to the left and right. The two swings are firmly coupled via the tilt axis, which means that you can take pictures in parallel with 2 different fixed focal lengths.
Furthermore, the tilt heads differ in the choice of material; most of them have an arm made of aluminum, and a few have carbon.
Many tele tilters also have a quick-change mount, which enables quick-release plates to be coupled and the center of gravity to be balanced in the tilting axis of the head if the quick-release plate can be moved forwards and backwards in this coupling.
Some tele headers have a modular structure; this has the advantage that they can be dismantled for transport. If the pan head consists of a horizontal component with a vertical component that can be moved laterally, it can often also be used as a panorama head for multi-row panoramas.