AcratechLarge Leveling Base, 25 lbs Load Capacity

High quality, metal construction, easy to use. I use mine t level the video fluid head before shooting. Large knob makes it easy to loosen and tighten securely.

Good product, but can only correctly level within the range it’s designed for. Once you have it in the field you’ll understand that. Still, no regrets. ‘Glad to have it.

This is OK for light lenses if you wanna set up a panoramic photo or something, but not very useful for heavier lenses in the up to 25 pounds range of the claimed load capacity. You have to really crank on the knob, otherwise it slips and obviously the heavier the lens the worse the issue. If you wanted something to level a gimbal head with a 600mm prime, this is not a good choice even if that combo is under 25 pounds. It's extremely frustrating because of the slippage.Also, if you sometimes carry your tripod with a lens on, it'll definitely slip and maybe that's where things start to snowball. I think the slippage has gotten worse over time and maybe it's because I often like to carry my tripod with the lens on it. This is no problem at all with a decent ball head, so I didn't expect it to be a problem with the Acratech leveling base.Finally, compared to other leveling bases, you really don't have much adjustment available. Even when my tripod seems visibly close to level, I often can't get it perfect with the leveling base alone and have to instead center the leveling base, adjust tripod legs, and do very fine-tuning with the leveling base. When that's the case, you're better off just getting a ballhead with a leveling bubble on it and skipping the extra step in most cases. Or just get a tripod with a center column you can level.However, if you know that this is really only useful in the specific case that you set up your tripod to already be level and want to carefully adjust for perfectly level panning to do a panoramic photo, you'll be happy with this. Just really crank that knob to get it tight so you don't screw up your shot. Although if you're that into panoramas, you might have more specialized gear to get your shots lined up perfectly, anyway. So, really, I can't think of anyone who this product is good for. My only guess is that the positive reviews are pretty old and written before many other products that make this one obsolete were available.For me, I wish I'd not bought it and put the cost of this toward a new tripod.

just tested it out with my D500 and D810 bodies with L Brackets. I set it up one time and was able to switch bodies and lens with no adjustments need after. This is very solid leveler.

This is an excellent leveling base. I couple it with the Acratech Panoramic Head and an Acratech Nodal Point Bar for making multi-row stitched panoramas. Leveling is quick and easy. The resulting panoramas stitch much better.