Adjusting a gimbal head

Monday 14 July 2025, 14:41 by Nando Harmsen | 2,929 views | 2 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

A gimbal head is perfect for using long and heavy lenses. You do need to make sure you set it up correctly. Only then can you make the most of this tripod head.

A gimbal head provides balance and freedom of movement when using large, heavy telephoto lenses. You can loosen all the knobs without having to worry about the camera tipping over or even falling.

A gimbal head, intended for large black telephoto lenses.
To use a gimbal head properly, it needs to be set up correctly. You can simply place the camera and lens on it, but that is not ideal. In principle, the name gimbal head is poorly chosen, because swinging is what you do not want.

A properly adjusted gimbal head keeps the camera in any desired position without you having to hold or lock anything in place. Turn the camera left or right, up or down, and let go. The setup should then stay in that position.

Place the camera on the base plate. It is almost always an Arca-Swiss compatible system. You need an Arca-Swiss lens plate.
Once the camera has been placed on the gimbal head, you will notice that it is out of balance. After loosening the swing knob, everything will tilt forwards or backwards.

To prevent this tilting, you can slide the Arca-Swiss coupling plate forwards or backwards in the holder. Keep doing this until you find the balance.

Position the lens plate forwards or backwards until the camera and lens remain balanced.
Always make sure you use a lens plate that is long enough. This gives you room to change the position of the lens on the base plate. If the lens plate is too short, you may not be able to achieve balance.

Always choose a lens plate with sufficient length. Only then will you have enough room to find the balance. In this example, the lens plate is slightly too short for this lens.
If you point the camera upwards or downwards, everything will still fall back downwards. You then have a real swinging gimbal head, which is not ideal. The camera must always be pushed away from the centre of gravity.

Even when the camera is perfectly balanced, everything will swing back when you point the camera up or down. Prevent this by adjusting the height.
The reason for the swinging movement is the height of the camera in the gimbal head. Make sure the lens is positioned high enough for its centre to be level with the swing knob.

Raising the base plate brings the rotation point to the centre of the lens. This gives you good balance.
Once you have completed these steps, you can use the gimbal head without ever having to lock the knobs. Because everything is balanced, the camera remains in the position you choose.

A properly adjusted gimbal head keeps the camera in any position without you having to lock the knobs.
There is one caveat. If you have a zoom lens that changes length, the balance will be different for each focal length. In that case, it is best to adjust the Arca-Swiss lens plate for the focal length you use most often.

Are you going to use a different focal length after all? Then you can simply shift the position of the Arca-Swiss lens plate in the base plate slightly. The height of the camera on the gimbal head can remain unchanged.

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