Great little fluid head for mirrorless cameras
For my Panasonic G9, I bought a Leofoto LS-254C carbon fibre tripod for travel. It came with a nice ball head, but it's not fluid. The smallest Leofoto fluid head (BV1R) is larger and heavier than the SmallRig CH10, and around three times the price. Some users also report that the BV1R dries up after some use.
I also have a "proper" fluid head for on-site work and the head alone weighs more than 2Kg. This little CH10 beauty WITH the LS-254C tripod, including the Arca plate and nifty magnetic allen key weight spot on 1.2Kg. Amazing, and quite stable with the G9.
The amount of fluid resistance offered by the CH10 with this kit is spot on, just right. Not too much, not too little. Smooth tilts and pans at various speeds. (Don't expect this small head to give you jitter-free tilts and pans with a 300mm lens, though! Also, with small desktop tripods and light cameras I could imagine the stiffness might be a little too much, requiring a finger to stabilize the tripod.)
I also tried this combo with my Olympus 45-150mm Pro tele lens, and after mounting (via the lens, not the camera) with a 100mm Arca plate to balance the tilt (a 70mm Arca plate would probably do; CH10 comes with 50mm plate), it too was smooth and stable. Since the CH10 is based on the Arca Swiss standard, you can mix pretty much any Arca plates with it, on-camera or on-lens. My whole mounting collection is based on Arca Swiss, so this obviously is ideal for me, though it might not suit you.
I reversed the CH10 handle and found that setup ideal for "fluiding" with the left hand, while leaving the right hand free to operate the pan and tilt locks (now on the RHS and front respectively, the front one well clear of any mounted lens and no longer underneath the camera body), as well as the camera settings and shutter.
The icing on the fluid-head cake is that the CH10, at least set for left hand, mounted on the Leofoto LS-254C tripod, lets the handle nestle down perfectly alongside two tripod legs when packed away, and gives a smaller, more streamlined pack-down profile than the original Leofoto ball head does (and, I would wager, than the BV1R fluid head, too).
Nice product from SmallRig.Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: New
