Chinese Copy of Sinar Pan-Tilt Heads

[dpn]

Saw these Chinese copies of the Sinar Pan-Tilt Head. They list the brand of their product as "Sinar," but they're not genuine.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pan-Tilt-Head-for-Sinar-Camera-/182373878813

They seem to be priced well above what used copies of the genuine article go for, so there's no reason to buy one instead of the real thing.

I wonder how bad they can be, given the apparent* simplicity of the Sinar design.

*I say apparent, because I know that the devil is in the details, especially given high-precision equipment.

It just strikes me as odd that such a niche product would be copied. I can understand things like lens boards and tripod QR plates, but a specialty head?

[Drew Wiley]

Hard to say without seeing one up close. Might be decently machined or might just be more of the usual cast Mozzarella cheese painted black.

[Bob Salomon]

Sinar is now owned by a Chinese company , so these may be "genuine", though not Swiss.

Not quite! Sinar is owned by Leica and they are not a Chinese company. Read this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinar

[Jerry Bodine]

At one time the Sinar website was Sinar.ch, now it seems to have gone to Sinar.swiss.

Greg, the .ch stands for Switzerland, not China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.ch

[Drew Wiley]

The typical abbreviation for China is prc.

[Mark Sampson]

I'd like one of these heads for my Norma but the last one I saw for sale, used, was $300 asked(!) Won't bother to see if it's still available new- it would probably be more than I paid for my whole camera setup. I would never have thought that anyone would bother to make a knockoff. It's hard to imagine the Sinar market these days would be large enough to make it worthwhile... especially if your competition is 60 years' worth of used gear (as well as new ones).

[Ken Lee]

I have a Sinar P but I've never used one of these heads, OEM or imitation.

Do they have a compelling advantage ? Are they well-suited to Sinar cameras and their rails etc. ?

[Peter De Smidt]

Ken, I've tried lot's of heads with Sinar cameras. Nothing I've tried is as good as the Sinar head with a Sinar camera. It's light, compact, strong, and very easy to use. The rail holder can't spin on the head.

[Drew Wiley]

The Sinar Rail Clamp II prevents slippage; but it can be just as uncommon and expensive as the pan-tilt head. Now I just use the old Norma low-profile clamp,
since I'm fully accustomed to using no tripod head at all. This allows everything except pointing almost straight down.

[Len Middleton]

Saw these Chinese copies of the Sinar Pan-Tilt Head. They list the brand of their product as "Sinar," but they're not genuine.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pan-Tilt-Head-for-Sinar-Camera-/182373878813

It just strikes me as odd that such a niche product would be copied. I can understand things like lens boards and tripod QR plates, but a specialty head?

Well if one has some skill in disassembling and measuring components, or developing simple designs, and putting them into CAD (Computer Aided Drawing) to do CNC machining, all one would need to do then is run one prototype to test the design. Then you could advertise and build to order. Thus the only inventory you would need to carry is the raw material (e.g. aluminium bar stock).

Not certain that is what is being done, but it is a reasonable business model if you have the skills available at relatively low cost...