The most important advantage of L-brackets is that while on the tripod, the camera behaves the same way whether its in landscape or portrait orientation. This is important because most ballheads limit your range of movement when changed over into portrait. Leaning a ball-head over 90 degrees for a portrait orientation is not recommended for several reason. It changes the viewpoint, so you have to move the tripod. It also lowers the camera. It puts the whole tripod off-balance, which is fine indoors but bad outside on uneven ground when the tripod might not be very stable already. It also has a "hard stop" at 90 degrees from the top of the head -- which again can be frustrating on uneven ground because you can't get the camera completely vertical
|
|
|