I purchased this for an astronomy/tourism trip to Australia to pair with a Bogen monopod to support 70mm binos, a point & shoot digital camera, and a DV cam. I just can't say enough good about this head!

For binos - I'm known as a bino fanatic and the combo of this head and the monopod gave a fantastically flexible yet stable mount. This head is the smoothest mount I've used for binos and did a fantastic job. I carry it everywhere the binos go and use it no matter if I'm sitting, standing, or on my back.

For cameras - It's no surprise that the monopod-ball head combination was not as steady as a tripod, but it's far more flexible. I would set it at a height that was a bit taller than eye height so I could kick it out and tilt the head, creating a tripod between the monopod and my legs. It worked nicely and was great for quick snapshots of kangaroos and parrots on the move.

The addition of the quick release plate was fantastic. I had three, one for each of my cameras and one for the bino mount. It was easy, quick, and efficient to swap between them.

Over the last year, this head has been subjected to everything from baggage gorillas on several trips, abuse in my day pack, bouncing around in my Jeep on back country roads, and use and abuse under all sorts of conditions. It still looks almost new and has yet to give me any problem.

This is just a fantastic piece of gear!

This is the second 3265 (222) that I have purchased. My first one still works as new and it is eighteen years old. For me it does all I want it to do on either my tripod or my monopod. I have never had any slippage and use up to my 100-400 Canon on it. I also use an XTi. I did pay about twice as much this time around--but things have changed it twenty years as well!!

This has been a great camera head for me for the past 5-8 years. I ran into the, "Can't hold weight" problem too the moment I went to larger lenses.
Let me give you a heads-up. Tighten the small screw on the backside of the handle, towards the bottom of the grip. It is a very small, allan head screw. Then back the tension off on the handle setting and your good for more than 5.5 lbs. Good luck.

i haven't received it yet, but i used it while i was in school a couple times, and i loved it.

mega recommend, especially for people who don't have the patience to be tightening and loosening knobs all day, the only down side is the 5.5 pound limit but my D70s is Plenty light.

This is a fantastic tripod head. Although I have read some reviews regarding the weight capacity, I have had no issues using my Canon EOS D20 with a 17-85mm lens attached. I do think that it could have problems with my larger 100-300, but I did not intend to use it with that lens. The incredible versatility is not necessarily needed for that type of functionality.