Benro H8 head review

Semi-long term review of the benro gear : some stuff get better with time

I have been using my benro AF15 kit with aluminium legs and S2 head for some months now, and I really like the quality. I feel like the panning smoothness has improved with time. Having a leveling ball head is amazing, it saves so much time when setting up shots! Also it is a must to use a small slider and adjust horizontal very easy.

I however changed the S2 head for a S4 as my main head and only use the S2 on a monopod. The S4 has counter-balance and overall is slightly smoother than the S2. I did not like that the S2 has no counter balance, seemed dangerous to me with heavy setups! My only complain would be that the S4 head has a filsmsy plastic quick plate lock button while the S2 has a metal anodised one.. Also benro labels and serial numbers and such are not very high quality and tend to unglue.

The af15 are still very good sturdy legs even for the heavier S4 head, they take the load no problem. They also spread out very wide for stability. My only complain on the legs would be that the center collum keeps from going lower than about 40cm.

The counter- balance on the S4 head is well suited to a bigger m43 camera with heavy lenses, I use it mostly with a GH3/4 and samyang glass on a speed booster. With this kind of setup, the counterbalance keep the setup from falling to fast and with shock, and will stay level if you keep +/- 30 degrees from horizontal. With lightweigh m43 glass it will self level within +/- 20 deg.

I was thinking about getting a aero 4 because of airplane restrictions but when using decent companies it has been a non issue. Overall there is a very good long lasting quality feel to this thing. I think I may not need another video tripod anytime soon!

@yskunto, I still have the same kit, did not have any real need to upgrade yet as its a great kit for my uses, and most of the time I can take it on the plane as an accessory instead of a laptop case or such. My next buy may be a small photo tripod will cheap ball head for when I'm self filming in MTB

I have a manfrotto 200pl system, and for 6 months I have been using a peak design capture pro plate with arca swiss and 200PL compatibility.