Heads Up: Nice Ballhead On Sale Cheap!

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Yesterday, I went down to Roberts Camera in Indianapolis to pick up something, and I saw on their clearance rack a huge number of Slik SBH-550 Ballheads, new in the package, for $35 each!

I bought one because I plan to do a Tripods tutorial soon, and want to show some different types of tripod heads in it. I've never owned a ballhead and was just planning to borrow one from a friend because I didn't want to spend a couple hundred bucks on something I probably will not use much. $35 was so little, I went ahead and got one.

It is a heavy, strongly built, solid head. Roberts has them on their website at the regular price of $199, but the site says they're out of stock. They actually have probably 20 more of them in the store. The salesman told me that they bought out another camera store and those were ones that came with the inventory they bought.


Here's the listing on their site:
https://robertscamera.com/sbh-550-ball-head-black





Here's a photo of mine, mounted on my old Manfrotto legs:

If anyone is looking for a good ballhead and is short on $$$, this is a damn good price. You'll have to call them to buy one, since for some reason they're not selling them on their website.

 

[peter_n]

Chris it's great that you're doing a tutorial on tripods and tripod heads. Regrettably good tripods cost a lot of money and some of the inexpensive ones are a complete waste of money. There's a very good site called The Center Column that ranks tripods and ballheads for stability on the basis of a repeatable testing method. Dave Berryrieser runs the site and the testing, he's an unbiased mathematician and his ranking tables are all fact and no opinion. Also there's a sub-forum on the FM photo forum that is mostly concerned with camera support equipment and there are quite a few knowledgeable people contributing there.

 

[charjohncarter]

Thanks Chris, I'm out of town, but I'll try them when I get back.

 

[B-9]

Those are rated at 22lbs that’s a heavy duty ball head at a killer price!

I should think about grabbing one. Love Roberts! Happy Customer.

 

[shawn]

They have them on their ebay site for $60. For that price you can get a similar Sirui ballhead with arca clamp though.

Shawn

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

They have them on their ebay site for $60. For that price you can get a similar Sirui ballhead with arca clamp though.

Shawn

That's why you call them to buy one for $35, assuming they haven't raised the price in the store. I know they charge a lot higher prices on eBay than they do on their own website or in store because of ebay and paypal fees being so high.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Chris it's great that you're doing a tutorial on tripods and tripod heads. Regrettably good tripods cost a lot of money and some of the inexpensive ones are a complete waste of money. There's a very good site called The Center Column that ranks tripods and ballheads for stability on the basis of a repeatable testing method. Dave Berryrieser runs the site and the testing, he's an unbiased mathematician and his ranking tables are all fact and no opinion. Also there's a sub-forum on the FM photo forum that is mostly concerned with camera support equipment and there are quite a few knowledgeable people contributing there.

Thanks for the links, Peter, they'll be very useful for me!