Using a Tripod Ball Head for Outdoor Photography

Let's talk about the features of a ball head. Now, not all ball heads are created equal. At the very least your ball head will have a primary control knob which allows you to when you release the knob to move your camera around and select a position. Most ball heads will also have a friction knob which is on this ball head right back here. And this allows you to change the friction so that the ball head will actually be clamped tighter or looser depending on which way you go. So you can actually tighten the friction so even when this is loose it moves around very stiff or you can loosen it so that it moves more freely. Personally, I like to keep a little bit of tension so that if I release the head it doesn't go flopping over if you've got it completely loose, if you let go, it falls. So, just enough tension to keep it from falling over but also keep it so that I can easily move it around. And the third type of knob that most ball heads have is a pan knob, which allows you, once you have everything set to simply pan the head around in a circle so that once you got things set with your primary knob if you need to move left to right, you can use the pan knob to get the optimum position for your camera.