My Review of Giottos MH1004 Mini Ball Head with Single Knob for Ball and Pan

Adorama

Giottos MH1004 Mini Ball Head with Single Knob for Ball and Pan

Giottos MH1004 Mini Ball Head with Single Knob for Ball and Pan

Excellent little ball head

cmh Doylestown, PA 8/10/2009

5 5

Pros: Good Stability, Large Range of Motion, Attaches Firmly, Strong Clamp

Best Uses: Photography, Reducing Noise (ISO Reduction), Long Exposures

Describe Yourself: Photo Enthusiast

I picked this ball head up to go with the Flashpoint handlebar mount, thinking that it was required. Turns out it wasn't necessary, but I'm still happier with this ball head than with the handlebar mount, and will probably get more use from it. It's quite small, and fits nicely on top of my compact gorillapod, but even when mounted on top of my tripod, it can handle my Nikon D80 SLR with a fairly heavy 18-200mm VR lens with no problem. The knob quicky and easily unlocks it, allowing you to reposition any which way you want, and then lock it down again quickly. This ball head is an absolute must-have for use with a Gorillapod, as it gives you flexibility on the final aiming that can be quite difficult with the Gorillapod alone.

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My Review of Flashpoint High-Grade Alloy Bicycle Bracket for 31.8mm Handlebars, Allows the Mounting of Ballheads

Adorama

Flashpoint High-Grade Alloy Bicycle Bracket for 31.8mm Handlebars, Allows the Mounting of Ballheads

Flashpoint High-Grade Alloy Bicycle Bracket for 31.8mm Handlebars, Allows the Mounting of Ballheads

Nice design but transfers too much shake

cmh Doylestown, PA 8/10/2009

3 5

Pros: Lightweight

Best Uses: Casual riding

Describe Yourself: Photo Enthusiast

First and foremost, Adorama says you need a ball head to use this. You do NOT need a ball head. It can help and make the mount more flexible, but it is NOT necessary, as the mount comes with both a 1/4" and 3/8" thread. If you're just going to mount the camera pointed forward, you can save the money and skip the ball head.

I came across this camera mount on Adorama, and looked at it for a while before deciding to buy it. My plan was to use it to mount my Canon SD800 (small point-and-shoot) and shoot video. When I got it, I was impressed with the build quality, it does not look cheap at all, and the hardware is quality. Installation is very easy.

The problem, however, is the same with a ball head or without. At moderate speeds, the camera works very well, with only moderate shake, as can be seen in the following short video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wHd3yhPFJU

However, on the mountain bike (with front suspension) or on the road bike (carbon fiber frame and fork) once you start reaching any type of "interesting" speeds, the vibration is such that my camera winds up shutting itself off, and even if the camera was recording at the time, the file that was recording is lost.

For example, I rode a course at casual speeds, and got 10 minutes of good quality footage. During a race on the same trails, however, I got nothing, because the higher speed and sharper bumps caused the camera to shut off. On the road bike, I could cruise around town, but when I headed for a high-speed downhill, it would shut off soon after I started.

It is possible that other cameras would have better results, if they are more resistant to vibration. Understand - I'm not talking about the shake reduction feature in the camera (the SD800 has this) - I'm talking about being bolted to your handlebars and shaken pretty hard.

For cruising around the beach, a casual bike trip, or really smooth roads, it'll probably work pretty well, but for anything more interesting, you'll have to look elsewhere.

For my use, though, I'm saving up for a proper sports camera.

Mounted on mountain bike.

: Picture of Product

Short test video using the mount

: Mountain, Handlebar, Using Product, Road, Doylestown, MTB, Flashpoint, Mount, Bike

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My big, crazy, pointless project...

Recently I've undertaken the project of rearranging my digital pictures. One of the things I've done is renamed them with the date and time code in the filename, so they sort in chronological order, even if the sequence numbering out of the camera is screwy. (like what happened when the numbers "rolled over" from IMG_9999.JPG to IMG_0001.JPG on our trip to Bend, OR)

Of course, in order to include date and time info, you really want to have the date and time info be right. Although I usually keep the time on my cameras set and adjusted properly, sometimes it can be a bit tricky, like when we took that trip to Bend, and I forgot to adjust for the change in time between EST and PST. In that case, I was able to use a picture of a sunset along with the sunset data from aa.usno.navy.gov to figure out the proper time adjustment, which I then applied to all the pictures before renaming.

What gets really complicated, though, is our trip to Tucson, AZ for a Western Spirit mountain biking trip. Not only do I have my own pictures from the trip, I also have pictures from four other people who were on the trip! So, now it's a real detective job to figure out who's got the right times and the ones who don't. I thought my times were right, but a sunset picture shows that I never adjusted my camera for MST. Another guy who took pictures at the same time has the times set at 2:23pm the next day! Yet another doesn't have pictures at that sunset, but in one picture, you can read the time on my watch and see he's off by two hours as well... which is appropriate since he runs a bike shop in Montauk. A third, well, I still haven't figured out exactly what the adjustment is on his, because he didn't take that many pictures, and the only overlap I have is with the guy whose pictures appear to be 20 hours off. The last guy? His camera didn't timestamp the EXIF information, and the file time info is useless, so I'm more or less on my own. (Thankfully he only shot 19 pictures, and there's pretty good overlap with the others, so I'll be able to fake the time info so they sort in the right general area.)

If that weren't bad enough, there's the question of -- if it's wrong on this picture, can I assume it's wrong throughout the vacation? Sometimes I remember a little late, and then I adjust the time while I'm out there. Most of the time, honestly, it doesn't matter if I'm off a couple hours in either direction, but when I'm trying to put together the work of five different photographers, it's another story.

Okay, yes, the really important part is I have the pictures themselves, and getting the time right really does not matter a hill of beans, but it's pretty cool to have a picture of Grace and I taken by Jim, right next to another picture at almost the same exact time, taken by Mark, of Jim taking our picture. Plus, when viewing the pictures, it's nice to see them in order, and not wind up jumping around.

To be perfectly honest, it's not an important project at all, but it is fun simply because it is such a challenge, and a learning opportunity. Hey, before I started this, I didn't know that the Navy provides a site that can tell you that on March 16th, 2006, the sun set at 6:32pm in Tucson, AZ, and civil twilight happens at 6:57pm. (nor did I know that "civil twilight" means the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon) It's also a fun challenge to look at different pictures from different cameras to try to correlate what's happening... and the fact that the pictures are of a great vacation with friends and bring back good memories just makes it even better.