Andrea: Ball heads exist which can handle large loads. The Arca Swiss B1G (giant) is rated to hold loads up to 200 lbs. The regular B1 is rated to 90 lbs. Both are traditional ball head designs. I'd guess that some of the Foba and Linhof ball heads are also pretty good in this regard. I agree with your viewpoint that using a ball head in the studio would be pretty difficult.
Well ideally you want the Arca Swiss B2, which a double tilt + pan head that loo ks like a large monoball, but B2 heads aren't cheap. Before I got mine I used an Arca Swiss B1 monoball and by adjusting the friction control it was very eas y to level a wide variety of cameras in both directions. I was using an Arca Swiss F-Line (with lens, etc., probably this was about 8.5> 9.5 lbs. and later a much lighter Canham 45DLC.
RE: Wooden tripods... The ultimate and sturdy head for Field use is probably the Ries head Have a look on ries.com
Excuse...i was too fast The actual URL is: http://www.riestripod.com
Also Newsletter WFPA is on line : http://www.johndesq.com/visor
Yesterday there was some trouble getting there due to the Mars event....broadcsted live on Internet.
I've used an 11 lb 8 X 10 (Wisner) on an Arca Swiss B1 Ballhead, and never had any trouble whatsoever with stability. With leveling, the only trick is that you need a spirit level where you can see both vertical and horizontal orientation at the same time. Wisner is designed poorly for this, but my Linhof, which has a single circular spirit level for simultaneous horizontal/vertical, works perfectly and quickly with a ballhead. It's what I use by preference over a Bogen 3047 pan-tilt, which I also have and now never use.
Nathan
Hallo everybody! I second John's advice to look at Ries (By the way among the best wooden tripods in the world!). This head is, in a way, a combination of the movements of a ballhead and a 3way head, and (Bob Solomon will love this!) looks very similar(not the same!) to the way that some Linhof heads work, certanly like the one I had on my master technika TL.
However the point is accademic though.
This whole discussion should be taking into account the limits like: avalaibility and cost of the materials and the type of work that you are supposed to accomplish. Some tripods perform better under certain circumstances, so do heads and anything else in the photographic world. There are no ultimate solutions because there are only relative problems. I do not believe in the perfect this, that or the other, exist.
Given a certain budget and describing the operation field, brings you, in general, to a number of solution being those specialized or multipurpose ones. I have a number of tripods and heads. This is the result of many lucky finds (second hand) and years of trials and too many errors. There is always room for improvement though and that's why I thank you all for your expert advice and nice contributions.
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