Manfrotto Xpro Magnesium Ball Head with Top Lock plate
£139/$170 www.manfrotto.co.uk
t first glance, this head doesn’t look that special – but there’s more than meets the eye. The magnesium construction is rated to support 10kg: enough for almost any full-frame set-up, yet the head tips the scales at a reasonable 520g.
At its heart is a large ball for good stability; its grease-free polymer housing enables exceptionally smooth movement, even with a lot of friction applied. The friction is set using a tactile, clicky wheel that’s better than most systems for dialling in a precise level of drag. Rather than using rubberized or knurled knobs, the ball-and-pan movement is tightened using levers, which lock securely with minimal effort.
The Xpro ball head can be specced with several mounting plate designs. We went for the Top Lock system, which is Arca-swiss compatible, with the quick-release plate released using a simple but effective button. The top plate is surrounded by three individual bubble levels for precision camera levelling, and they’re all viewable with your camera mounted on the head.
APROS Extremely smooth; ergonomic locking levers and friction dial; effective quick-release
CONS Not quite as compact as the Benro G2 head, also on test
frames per second – an improvement of 2fps over the D5’s already-pretty-nippy 12fps. And while that might not sound a lot, anyone who has shot professional sports or wildlife will tell you that those ‘frames between the frames’ can be the difference between an award-winning cover shot and a missed also-ran opportunity.
That’s a significant improvement on the D5, but all those extra frames are no use if
got the knack of Sandisk’s Type B cards, which have been problematic on the Nikon Z 6 and Nikon Z 7. You can also use XQD cards, as these are also compatible, should you already happen to have a stash of them.
In terms of connectivity, which is where the rubber meets the road for working pros, the D6 has all the bases covered. In addition to supporting fast USB-C, it now has built-in 5GHZ Wi-fi and GPS (both of which required external modules on the D5), with gigabit Ethernet supporting 1000BASE-T – achieving a claimed 15% faster communication than its predecessor.
BUILD AND HANDLING
While inwardly it’s packing plenty of new tech, outwardly the Nikon D6 is almost indistinguishable from the D5. Obviously that’s a good thing for established users, as muscle memory means that a sense of continuity is critical, so moving all the buttons around to unfamiliar locations would have caused some gritted teeth.
The D6 is every bit as bomb-proof as you’d hope and expect. It’s a hulking body, even by pro DSLR standards, and when you hold this thing you know that you could drive over it with your car or use it to break into a building – it’s that solid and robust.
The pentaprism is large, bright and comfortable to use, and we had no problems with eye strain (something that can’t always be said for electronic