The world is awash with ball heads, but there aren’t too many pan and tilt tripod heads to choose from, especially compact video heads. The AirHed Trinity is not just for video, though, being aimed at all kinds of content creators, wildlife watchers, sports fans and more.
It is especially suited to video, however, with a smooth fluid panning axis and a spring-weighted tilt axis, making camera movements much smoother and more controlled.
The best tripods usually ship with ball heads, a much more common design that's also compact and quick to use, but ball heads don't offer the same controlled movement along a single axis as pan and tilt heads and are less well suited to video.
3 Legged Thing AirHed Trinity features
Designed as an alternative to the regular AirHed Neo ball head offered with 3 Legged Thing’s Punks tripod range, the AirHed Trinity has a regular 3/8-inch threaded socket so it could actually be used on any tripod. It’s equipped with a standard 38mm Arca Swiss quick-release plate with a simple locking screw, so you could swap out the regular square plate for a longer 3LT Ultra plate or Cine plate, for example, for better for-and-aft balancing with longer lenses or heavier gear.
The best video tripods can be pretty expensive and often beyond the scope and needs of everyday content creators, so cheaper, lighter and simpler alternatives will always be welcome.
Perhaps the key feature of the AirHed Trinity is its size – or lack of it. It’s just 8cm tall and 9cm wide (without the included panning handle attached), but still has a maximum weight capacity of 5kg, which is well beyond the average content creator’s camera/kit combo and enough to handle even large telephoto lenses.
You can use the AirHed Trinity with or without its removable 20cm panning arm. This can be adjusted for angle and locks into position. The Trinity also has separate pan and tilt locks, and when these are slackened off, there is still a smooth resistance, or ‘drag’, for camera movements.
AirHed Trinity availability and price
The AirHed Trinity is available on its own right now, and will be offered with Punks Video kits with Corey 2.0, Travis, Patti 2.0, Billy 2.0, and Brian 2.0 tripods from May 14. It will also be offered with will also be bundled with Punks and Legends monopod kits with the Docz foot stabiliser, to create monopod ‘superkit’. The standalone price for the AirHed Trinity is $89.99 / £79.99 (about AU$138).
