Most tripod heads are the same, with only minor differences in how they control camera movement or how well they are built. The odd duck is called the Platypod. At the cost of a steep learning curve, it turns the typical ball-mount design on its head.
The tripod mounts allow the camera to pan horizontally. On top of that is a ball joint that can be tilted in any direction, typically with a knob to tighten the joint, locking it in place or adjusting how smoothly the joint moves.
Almost every aspect of the tool is different. The rotating base plate is on top while the ball joint is on the bottom. One of its intuitive changes is this one. The ball head allows for smooth movement in any direction, but once the ball joint is locked off, the camera can pan along a single axis easily. It makes sense. Some of the changes this tripod head brings are downright confusing.
Learning the basics again.
The ball-mounts have knobs to tighten or loosen the joint, but the Platyball has two large triggers at the front. One tightens the joint and the other loosens it. To loosen or tighten the joint, you have to repeatedly press the respective button. It gets harder to press the button if you tighten it.
This is the least intuitive way to tighten a joint. This approach allows you to fine-tune how much flexibility the ball joint provides. You want to get a whip pan shot, where the camera rapidly pans and suddenly stops on the subject. A typical ball head mount can do this, but it requires some skill to avoid shaking the camera when it lands.
I have shaky hands and have never been able to pull off these fancy camera moves consistently. It is possible, but it is soul-crushing when your shot is ruined because your hand slipped at the end. It was easier to get smooth camera movements with the platyball.
Once you get used to having one hand on the camera and one on the ball at all times, the buttons feel a lot more intuitive. You can adjust the ball joint without taking your hand off the camera. If you take some time to get used to how it works, a camera operator could pull off some really cool shots.
The dial to control the rotating top plate sits next to the left thumb on the left hand side of the platyball. It is possible to get a whip shot that lands on a subject, tighten the ball joint so the angle stays steady, then loosen the rotating top plate, all without ever taking your hands off the camera. It took some time, but once I got used to it, the Platyball felt more flexible than traditional ball mounts.
There are choices that are confusing.
There are almost an equal number of decisions that I don't understand. The Platyball doesn't have a typical release mechanism, but it does have a quick-release plate at the top of the head. Instead, there is a ridged button that will allow the bottom half of the top section of the Platyball to be released.
It is not immediately obvious that this is how the device works, since the part that rotates to open the quick-release plate is one half of the mechanism that rotates the entire top plate. There is a locked-padlock icon on one side of the dial and an unlocked-padlock icon on the other side. You would think this would control the quick-release plate, but it doesn't.
The fact that the quick-release plate got stuck on more than one occasion made my confusion worse. I assumed I was doing something wrong, but after some frustrating fiddling, I realized that I was using it as intended.
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