Just throwing this into the pot for an idea, and assuming panos aren't the point of the question since it wasn't mentioned
What the Hell is the point of spending more than a few bob on a head? Its not like you need smooth tracking for a Landscape shot (pano's aside), and if fine adjustment is the issue then you still have time on your hands for a bit of faffing with a basic head of any kind
If the head can take the weight AND do tilt too I really can't see what the point of an expensive head is. I've used a £45 pan & tilt for about 10 years now and never once thought a £400 head would make my shot any better
So really, what's the point?
Dave
I must say that I agree.
What ever head you use, it is fixed on to the Tripod with a single 3/8 screw via a plate and probably a cork or plastic infill.
If you examine the flex points in any set up most of them are to be found in the tripod, especially if it has an extending column.
I did some tests some while ago.to look at the question of vibration, especially in the legs.
I did it purely by observation of the magnified image in live view, so as to measure the time it took for vibrations to settle after the camera was lightly struck with a wooden pencil..
The best results were found in a wooden tripod when fitted with no head or extension. this settled in a couple of seconds.
My middleweight old Slik tripod was no worse than my Manfrooto 055proB which settled in under 5 seconds, in each you could see the vibration moving down the legs and returning to the camera again as the oscillations came and went. and were shown in live view.
This became even more apparent when a head was fitted, of what ever type.
when the extension columns were raise even slightly things became far worse.
I did the trial because I had had some lack of sharpness in some of the shots, when taking panoramas.
When I use my pano head now, I use it directly on the legs with out either a levelling head or a ball head. I level it with the legs alone.
The nodal ninja head seems to add little if any extra vibration.
The point being the less things you have between the leg support and the camera the better.
In windy conditions you can dampen vibration far better hand holding than on a tripod. In a buffeting wind vibration is more or less constant and unavoidable.