This is an awesome tripod head for heavy equipment, and long lenses. If you plan on trekking through the mountains, you'd better forget it. If you plan of covering motor sports from a fixed position, catching birds in flight, or at rest from a fixed position, this is the absolute best head that I've ever used. It swings through the horizontal and vertical axes like it is on ball-bearings. Absolutely smooth. Panning is now a breeze, and this is rock solid. I wish that I had found this years ago. The mount allows you to slide theplate forward or backwrd so that you can achieve perfect balance of the camera and lens before you clamp everything down. Shown with the lens only, as I had to use my camera to take this photo.