I bought this to help with panoramic camera leveling. It is a perfect compliment in size with my Gitzo tripod and Markins ballhead. It has only received back yard testing so far, but will get some mountain panoramic use soon. The large leveling bubble is great.

This looks expensive, but for any use of a tripod, I find this is essential. It makes using tripod, especially leveling it, so much easier. I would highly recommend it to anyone.

quality performance, easy-to- use ...

I decided to shoot an ongoing video project that involves me being in rough forest and or fields. I thought I had to live with my tripod and fluid head by adjusting the length of the legs. I found out about adjustable leveling bases by accident on YouTube. Read the reviews and bought this model. It is a great time and aggravation saver. I make a quick adjustment with the legs and fine tune with the Acratech. I use a mid size DSLR camera.

works very well in levelling your tripod head or pano head... lightweight but holds well... highly recommended. used w/ Gitzo Tripod and RRS ballhead...

I have been using a Gitzo self-leveling base for over a decade but my Gitzo tripod, self-leveling base and RRS BH55 head are massive and are hauled out only for my longest L series Canon lenses. For all others my Manfrotto carbon fiber tripod with Acratech ball head has done quite well...except that it's difficult to level quickly. Adjusting the legs takes just too long. But at the recent Photo Plus Expo I saw a very compact self leveling head made by Sirui and knew that this accessory, placed between the ball head and the tripod, would work just as well as the massive (and loudly squeaking) one on the big Gitzo. So I checked out the Sirui, the Acratech and the Manfrotto self-leveling bases. The Manfrotto, although a third cheaper, is too massive and doesn't adjust fluidly at all; it's quite stiff. The Sirui adjusts easily and fluidly but so does the Acratech, which is obviously made to sit under their heads. It's hard to tell where the self-leveling base ends and the ball head begins once they're mated atop the center column. So for me, the choice was clear and I bought the Acratech which can level a head in moments and adds only 1.5 inches of height and no additional width to the tripod head. My photo students were asking why one even needs a self-leveling head. Why not just use the bubble level on the ball head, itself. It's much easier to level the base of the ball head than the ball, itself and having it level is critical for doing panoramas. Leveling the head prevents a multi-frame panorama from having jagged edges, requiring extensive cropping. And leveling a head with a self-leveling base is simply the easiest way to do this. The compact Acratech Leveling Base does it quickly and, unlike the Gitzo leveling base, you don't lose the centerpost. Construction-wise, it's a no brainer for Acratech head users as it's a perfect match for their ball heads.

For some reason it never occurred to me how handy a leveling base is so since I have the Acratech ultimate ballhead this was perfect for me. I like to pan for different compositions from one spot and now i stay level and can move quickly without needing to relevel the ballhead as I have done for too long. The 10 degree limit has not been an issue which some have commented on.

This leveling base has a large level bubble so very easy to setup.

Sure, you can live without this but it sure is nice. I guess it was designed for panos but I'm using it with a gimbal head to track birds. What a pleasure to set up my tripod and not have to adjust and re-adjust the legs! A quick tilt of the leveling base and I'm good to go. Of course, I don't need precise accuracy for that so keep that in mind. But it sure is handy.

Use this with manfrotto fluid head on gitzo carbon tripod for video setups. Super helpful for rapid set-up using bubble level on base itself and grid lines on LCD screen of camera. Almost impossible to achieve without this accessory.