Stewart Ransom wrote:
I have the Tamron and paid $1500 new. Nikon prices are too high. The Tamron is as good as the nikon

I disagree. I sold them both, and owned a couple of them both. The Nikons are indeed better ... Now if it's WORTH the extra money, that's up to you.

When I did sports, I had to have the Nikon. Had to. Of course with my employee discount the price was much more similar; without that, I may have gone Tamron.

Now I don't do sports, and only a couple weddings a year. I also don't have an employee discount. I'd take the Tamron over the Nikon in a heartbeat. If I were in a position to write it off, I might still buy the Nikon; but they're similar enough that if I couldn't, I wouldn't feel like I was missing out.

GRMACK wrote:
One thing I did add were the two long bolts with a rubber hose on them that screw into the Wimberley mounting plate.  You can see them ahead and behind the tightening knob on the Wimberley gimbal, and on mine there was a threaded hole for them too.  They limit the lens from swinging down and accidentally striking the ball head if I loosen the thing up and it isn't in balance and drops.

My body has a battery grip attached and I can easily get it to balance. This allows me to keep the pan and tilt adjustments loose for quick composition adjustments with no fear of the lens swinging down and slamming against the ball head.

You could attach a counter weight to the bottom of your camera Arca plate if desired? Fleabay has a number of Arca style clamps you could attach a steel bar counter weight to.