Is there anyone in here using any of the Uniqball heads, please?
I have a 35 and 45 uniqball heads. I like them but not sure if I would buy them for general landscape, but they are well made, and do what they say they do.
As they are made up with a ball head within a ball head, they allow you to use the outer ball head like a levelling base. The inner ball head is locked into the level position set by the outer ball, and it then acts more like a pan and tilt head than a ball head. The outer ball head is locked off once you set it up with the built in spirit level, and the tension on the inner ball head is adjusted to counterbalance the weight of the camera and lens. This allows you to move the camera and take photographs without ever locking the inner ball. If you get the tension exactly right, you can compose, and take your hand away from the camera and it doesn't move.
This is great for long lenses and wildlife as you can pan a flying bird knowing the horizon will stay straight, and I also use it for a telescope. It's also great for general purpose landscape and the built in levelling base capability should make it good option for panoramas, and a ball head is easier to carry than heads with handles. I used to carry a three way head, or a normal ball head for photography Plus a video head for the telescope (or video), but now I just carry a single uniqball head which is good (but not great) for all uses.
Issues:
The Arca swiss clamp is very fussy and doesn't work with "every" Arca plate I have. My other arca clamps work with every plate, but the uniqball clamps won't tighten enough to lock them.
Although the outer ball locks without creep, the inner ball moves a lot when you lock it off. And is really difficult to use if you want to lock the head down before taking the shot. If you get the counterbalance correct you probably don't need to lock off the inner ball, but I still don't feel entirely comfortable leaving it unlocked.
With close up work or when you need an more extreme camera position, ie pointing down a lot, you need to iterate your adjustments using both the outer and inner ball head, as both have a limited range of movements, and the position of one ball has a big effect on how you need to move the other ball. And because of the creep with the inner ball head, you need to make your final adjustments with the outer ball, which isn't as easy as using the inner ball, but then you can't really use the inner ball, because it creeps when you lock it off. Note this is only really an issue with closeups and extreme angles of view, and you do get used to it, but its still a bit of an irritation. This creep may now be fixed, but the faqs at uniqball suggested this was a consequence of the design, and something you just had to live with.
Overall, I think its strength is in its versatility: as a ball head it's not as good as my Linhof ball head (but I think the cost of this makes the Uniqball heads look cheap), its not as good as a Gimbal head for long lens wildlife photography, its not as good as a video head for video or telescope use, and its not as good as three way head (especially a geared head) for landscape or closeup photography.
But it does a good job of replacing all these heads, when you have a limited budget and multiple uses, or/and there is a limit to how many tripod heads you can carry and you need a compact head.
For the reasons I bought mine in the first place, I would buy one again, but now also look at the Flexline heads. Until your post I didn't know they existed. And I see that Andy Rouse, who was promoting and selling Uniqball heads seems to now be involved with Flexline, and has a video saying that their is no image creep with the Fexline heads.
My dream landscape head is
here
