Arca-Swiss C1 Cube clicPan – A welcome upgrade to the world’s best Tripod Head
If you’ve read our reviews of tripod heads in the past, it will be of no surprise to you that the Arca-Swiss line is a shop favorite here, especially the C1 Cube.
I’ve owned the original iteration for approximately 15 years and for the first time, I’m considering replacing it… with this new clicPan® variant recently released.
In the last couple years I have had more need to shoot nodal-point panoramic images, and my current Cube does not have indexed pan movements, making perfect repeatability from difficult to a near impossibility for the dozens of 7-shot sequences I’m capturing on any given day of commercial shooting. I’ve affixed a competitors indexed pan attachment to the top of my Cube, but after even the first commercial shoot on it, I was questioning how well it would work for repeatability since the indent seemed more ambiguous than I’d like.
The clicPan® C1 Cube however, has perfectly solid motions and a smooth rotation of its teflon coated ring to lock in different indexing increments. The clicPan® mechanism is lightweight and low in profile, adding approximately two ounces (60 grams) of weight and 10 mm of height to a standard head. In the video below I rotate only on the 15º click stop as well as 24º, while the full range supports 40° (9 stops), 30° (12 stops), 24° (15 stops), 20° (18 stops) 15° (24 stops), 12° (30 stops), 10° (36 stops), 7.5° (48 stops), 6° (60 stops) and “OFF” for free rotation.
Even though we’ve covered it before, the safety and precision of the flipLock® should not be underestimated in its value as I do not know of another camera holding mechanism that is superior to it. With one click motion forward to the 90º position, the camera is already 90% locked to the head and with the final click to the 180º position, two separate safety disengagements are required to free the camera from the head, which is perfect for carrying heavier than average medium/large format cameras, even when the articulations of the cube aren’t to facilitate a perfect perpendicular relationship to the ground.
The clicPan update to the already formidable C1 Cube adds even more brains to this beauty, which places it another wrung up the ladder as the best tripod head on the planet. -bk
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