My friends over at Wimberley sent over their new MH-100 MonoGimabl Head for me to test; I have been using it during my winter owl workshops and I absolutely love it!
What is it? The Wimberley MH-100 MonoGimbal Head for monopods is a super light-weight (but amazingly heavy-duty), single-axis monopod head designed to work with telephoto or super-telephoto lens.
Why do you need it? Indeed, you can attach a monopod directly to a lens or camera without a monopod head, but then you have to tilt the whole rig around when pointing upwards or downwards. Other monopod and ball-heads load the weight of the lens and camera on top of the head and make it somewhat unruly: the whole rig tends to want to flop over to one side which can result in damage to camera and or your fingers.
Using the Wimberley MH-100 MonoGimbal Head makes everything work harmoniously and intuitively, giving you the hand-held freedom, but transferring the weight load to your monopod. The side-mount design of the Wimberley MonoGimbal ensures a stable, smooth and solid vertical pan action, while horizontal panning is achieved by turning the camera and monopod together. It is light (.77 lbs = 347 grams) and solid and I see myself using it as my primary support for my Sony 200-600mm lens.
Click HERE to download the Wimberley MH-100 Monogimbal instructions from Wimberley.
“The Wimberley MonoGimbal Head is a new style of monopod head. It allows you to balance your lens, preventing lens flop. The end result is a hand-held experience with the added stability of a monopod.The offset nature of the head compared to a tilt or ball head seems like a problem for handling, panning, and maintaining a level horizon. However in practice your hands intuitively do all these things without even thinking about it.The MonoGimbal Head is a game-changer when it comes to portability. The offset nature allows easy carrying with the weight of the lens and camera resting on your back instead of applying all that weight to the monopod which then digs into your shoulder. Also, weighing in at .77lbs, it is a very light and compact unit.Lastly the MonoGimbal Head is capable of handling any lens with a rotating collar with the limiting factor being the strength of the monopod.”