Full gimbal head vs Wimberley Sidekick

[Karl Gillard]

Good afternoon all and hope everyone is having a great New Year so far!

Please allow me a minute to lay out the scenario. I have two tripods: an RRS carbon and a Benro aluminum. On the RRS, I had a Benro GH-2 gimbal head that has been a fantastic combination - “O” problems - using it 98% of the time with my Nikon 800mm f/5.6 lens. I have an RRS BH-55 ball head mounted to the Benro tripod. Both heads have RRS Quick Release clamps attached, so I’m able to change heads/tripods in seconds when I prefer my RRS tripod with the RRS BH-55. Recently (yesterday), I purchased a Wimberley Sidekick SK-100 and attached it to my RRS BH-55 on the RRS tripod. My reasoning is that this way I only need one tripod that has both heads attached - super easily convertible and works as well as the full gimbal.

Question: Is there any advantage to having the full gimble over the Sidekick? The Sidekick appears to work just as well as the full gimbal, but has the added versatility of the ball head.
Thanks,
Karl

 

[KurtH]

Hi Karl. For me, it was the opposite. I recently switched over from a full gimbal to a ball head with the sidekick because of camera/lens spacing issues. I loved my gimbal but once I switched to the Z9/600pf, the spacing (once I balanced it) no longer worked for me. The sidekick on the ball head allowed me to tilt the rig back just enough for my liking, and still stay somewhat balanced.

I would have preferred to keep the full gimbal as it's easier to pop the lens/camera on and off quickly but the ball head does give me more options as far as camera mounting, etc.

This discussion thread should be interesting

 

[DRwyoming]

The full gimbal is a bit easier to load with a big heavy lens especially an older model 600mm f/4 or 800mm f/5.6 but as long as you have a good ball head like your BH-55 the sidekick can work very well.

Personally, I really like the sidekick when shooting lighter lenses like the 500mm PF. The sidekick is also a bit easier to load if you’re running a low profile lens foot, some of the really tall stock lens feet can place the center of ball head rotation away from the lens’s optical axis which isn’t ideal.

 

[Karl Gillard]

Hi Karl. For me, it was the opposite. I recently switched over from a full gimbal to a ball head with the sidekick because of camera/lens spacing issues. I loved my gimbal but once I switched to the Z9/600pf, the spacing (once I balanced it) no longer worked for me. The sidekick on the ball head allowed me to tilt the rig back just enough for my liking, and still stay somewhat balanced.

I would have preferred to keep the full gimbal as it's easier to pop the lens/camera on and off quickly but the ball head does give me more options as far as camera mounting, etc.

This discussion thread should be interesting

Afternoon Kurt! I agree that the full gimbal is a bit easier to mount that large lens, but not so hard that it would change my mind. I included three pics of my setup. The way it is setup, I can easily change the heads on my monopod and tripod in seconds. I’m all about versatility….hahahaha!

 

[Calson]

Two aspects of the Sidekick differ from that of a standard gimbal head. It supports the lens from the side and there is no way to adjust the axis of the lens vertically with the Sidekick. It also presents a leveraged load on the ball head. I need to use a heavier and higher load capacity ball head to manage a lens weighing more than 4 lbs along with an attached camera body.

For a MFT camera and lens kit the Sidekick is great and something like the Kirk BH-3 ball head works very well. Then one has a ball head that converts to a gimbal head in seconds. The Sidekick is small enough to fit inside most shoulder bags and backpacks.

 

[Karl Gillard]

The full gimbal is a bit easier to load with a big heavy lens especially an older model 600mm f/4 or 800mm f/5.6 but as long as you have a good ball head like your BH-55 the sidekick can work very well.

Personally, I really like the sidekick when shooting lighter lenses like the 500mm PF. The sidekick is also a bit easier to load if you’re running a low profile lens foot, some of the really tall stock lens feet can place the center of ball head rotation away from the lens’s optical axis which isn’t ideal.

Hey DR! Yes, loading is just a bit trickier, but once I have the lens cradled, pretty easy. I tried it with my Z9, FTZ II, 500mmPF. The lens is too light to perfectly balance the system due to the weight of the camera, but I can work around that fairly easily. And, I normally shoot that setup handheld anyway. I’ll probably get a lower profile foot from Wimberley for my 800mm, which will bring it directly over the center of the tripod. Thanks for the advise!

 

[Karl Gillard]

Two aspects of the Sidekick differ from that of a standard gimbal head. It supports the lens from the side and there is no way to adjust the axis of the lens vertically with the Sidekick. It also presents a leveraged load on the ball head. I need to use a heavier and higher load capacity ball head to manage a lens weighing more than 4 lbs along with an attached camera body.

For a MFT camera and lens kit the Sidekick is great and something like the Kirk BH-3 ball head works very well. Then one has a ball head that converts to a gimbal head in seconds. The Sidekick is small enough to fit inside most shoulder bags and backpacks.

Afternoon Carlson! The RRS BH-55 ball head is pretty beefy and has a 50# load capacity. Weight of the camera/lens combo is approximately 15#, so even at that, it should handle easily. Appreciate your reply!

 

[tclune]

Two aspects of the Sidekick differ from that of a standard gimbal head. It supports the lens from the side and there is no way to adjust the axis of the lens vertically with the Sidekick. It also presents a leveraged load on the ball head. I need to use a heavier and higher load capacity ball head to manage a lens weighing more than 4 lbs along with an attached camera body.

There's a lot of sense in this post. I would just point out that there is no need for adjusting the lens axis vertically with the sidekick -- the point of doing so is to bring the lens into alignment with the axis of rotation. With the side-mount, it already is: with the mounting on a standard gimbal, you need to raise or lower the load to accomplish this. Having said that, I have never warmed to the Sidekick -- but that may be because I don't have a hefty enough ball head. It is fine for anything else that I do with a ball head, but may just not be up to handling the torque from the sidekick.

 

[ARClark]

In the past, my take on getting a full gimbal versus a sidekick was that a full gimble was a necessity to support a very heavy lens, such as an F mount 400 f/2.8, 600 f/4 or 800 f/5.6, although having gimble action with even lighter lenses was typically recommended for BIF and action shooting where the photographer needed the support. In my case, I can't speak to the pros and cons of using a full gimbal versus a sidekick, since I've only used a sidekick. My budget was more limited 15 years ago when I first got into birding with a long lens. I bought a Gitzo Series 3 tripod to support my old 500mm f/4 AF-Sii. Since the tripod was going to be doing double duty between landscape and nature closeups with smaller lenses, and shooting birds with the 500mm, I opted for the Wimberly sidekick in order to be able to easily transition back and forth between gimble and ballhead shooting. I intially had an Acratech ballhead that worked for several years until it gave out when I started using D8xx bodies and grips. Thankfully, it was reparable, but I realized it was undersized for the task. Since then, I've used a still relatively small and lightweight Markins Q10 ballhead with no problems.

So, bottom line, I can't tell you whether you're giving up anything going from the full gimbal to a sidekick, but based on my experience, the sideckick with my 500mm f/4, gripped D850 and TCs has worked like a charm for BIF and other shooting. And going foward, even with a Z9, my lens/body combos are getting lighter with mirrorless options.

 

[RickW]

Fwiw- I’ve been using a Sidekick for perhaps 20 yrs to mount a Nikon 400/2.8 and several pro DSLR’S on an old Arca Swiss B-1 ball head on a Gitzo 3 series CF leg set and never had any problem. The ease of transferring camera/lens combos on and off by just removing the Sisekick is too valuable to me to use 2 different heads. As for ease of mounting, I mount the 400 on the sidekick and then stick the Side kick into the head. Way easier than trying to wrestle the big lens into the pre mounted Sidekick. And of course when wanting to go to my D5 and 70-200, lifting the Sidekick out of the head makes it quite easy to dismount the D5 with the 400 and remount the sidekick with the other D 5 and the 70-200. True that the Sidekick does force cantilever positioning of the flopped ball head, but I learned immediately that the Gitzo legs/B1 head had no problem locking everything down. I’ve used (but don’t own} a RRS 55 and I have no doubt it is robust enough to use with the Sidekick.

One more point - I was using the AS B-1 head since before RRS existed and my original head had the original AS knob clamp. When I got the 400/2.8, I mounted a RRS lens plate on the RRS tripod foot. Wimberley warned me when I ordered my Sidekick that, while both original AS clamp and RRS version of AS plate were supposed to be the same, in fact there were slight differences in tolerance and it was suggested that I buy a special purpose Wimberley spacer plate to permanently mount in the Sidekick using 2 screws and red locktite. This problem is not a problem if you use dedicated RRS clamps and lens plates.

I’ll add that both the original AS ballhead and original Sidekick are still going strong. The panning knob on the head broke about 6 yrs ago and I was all set to buy a rrs55, but found some old timer that once worked for AS who installed a new panning knob for about $100 and it’s good as new.

 

[Karl Gillard]

Thanks much for the input Rick! Think I’m going to like this setup as much or more than my current gimbal. The tension on the BH-55 is easier to set to my liking. Now to sell the gimbal and extra tripod… hahaha!