With the death of my previous tripod it had indeed served me well (when used with 35mm SLRs) but it was certainly showing its age especially when handling gear heavier than an average SLR/DSLR.

The ball head was not able to support anything heavy for long or it couldn’t with accuracy as the ball head tend to creep especially at odd angles.

This was made all the more obvious when it nearly dropped my Hassy during a studio shoot (I managed to rescue it in time).

The locking knob on the ball head was now jammed/stucked on unlock and only the traction control knob would hold the head. This would not do because the locking knob is stronger than the traction control, without it, the ball head would then to creep more.

So I finally bought a sturdy replacement – Manfrotto MT190X3 with a 410 junior gear head from YL camera.

The set is definitely must bigger and heavier than my old set (cheaper though) but what it gives up in weight, it excel in pure strength.

Here is it with my Hassy. I will be testing it out next with my Pentax 67ii.

It can definitely hold my medium format rigs with ease and precision thanks to the 410 gear head. A lot better than the ball head.

The 410 junior gear allows fine-tune adjustment down to the single digit degree and can definitely handle any medium format camera. Maybe even a large format.

I do miss the fact I cannot carry this tripod on my backpack (it is too big, it will require its own dedicated bag for transport) but I can live with that.