Earlier this year Benro introduced their own 3-way geared head called the GD3WH. This short official video is one of the first which shows this head and what it can do.
Geared head are a very specialized niche product but a very useful one for studio photographers as well as architectural and landscape photographers amongst others. Here is an extract from our Manfrotto 405 geared head review explaining the function and need of a geared head:
“When the utmost precision is needed, even a 3-way head might not be enough. To get perfect precision a geared head lets you change the position of each axis extremely precisely with tiny increments using – you guessed it – a built-in gear system. These types of heads have been used for photography as well as some very large geared heads that have been used for decades in the film industry”.
This model is considerably lighter than the Manfrotto 410 (not to mention the Manfrotto 405 that we tested here which is a much bigger and heavier geared head). It also uses Arca-type plates unlike the Manfrotto heads but like the higher end Manfrotto heads it is fully metal (Magnesium-Alloy Construction) and has 3 bubble levels.
The new GD3WH is a lightweight, inexpensive geared head (there are very few options in this category. The GD3WH is only 0.87kg (1.92lbs) and can carry up to 6KG of payload ( a little bit above the weight of the XPro geared head by Manfrotto which has only 4KG of max payload and is made from Plastic but cost the same – $200 (the Benro is not yet available on B&H but should be soon).
Photographer Melvin Nicholson has a chance to play with the head and give his early impressions here.
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