Born Out of Necessity

The inspiration came from a simple problem: Scott couldn’t find a ball-head on the market that was both strong and lightweight enough for his hiking, travel, and landscape photography. At the time, the industry standard was the Arca-Swiss. While it was undoubtedly a quality piece of equipment, it was notoriously heavy and prone to getting jammed in the locked position. Scott didn’t want to spend hard-earned money on expensive gear only to have it fail him out in the field.

So, he built his own.

Initially, Mr. Dordick built this prototype purely for personal use. He assumed it would be impossible for a small machine shop to compete with established industry giants. However, fate had other plans. Everywhere Scott went, fellow photographers would see his unique, open-structure ball-head and ask, “Where can I buy one of those?” Persuaded by their enthusiasm, he decided to take the leap into manufacturing.

A Midnight Dash to West LA

By 2001, we began production on our very first official batch. Before the heads were even fully assembled, we took a chance and contacted Outdoor Photographer magazine to see if they ever reviewed tripod heads. To our surprise, they replied that they were finalizing a major ball-head shootout article at that very moment. Their coordinator told us, "If you can get one to us by tomorrow, we’ll include it."

The next day, we raced out to the magazine’s main headquarters in West Los Angeles to hand-deliver our brand-new creation.

The editors informed us that the review would drop in their Summer issue. Being new to the publishing world, we wrongly assumed that gave us until the month of June to finish manufacturing our first batch. We quickly learned that the "Summer" issue actually hits newsstands in May! Outdoor Photographer absolutely loved the Ultimate Ball-Head, and suddenly, the phones were ringing off the hook. We had a wave of eager customers wanting to buy our ball-heads before we had even finished machining them.

25 Years Later: The Legacy Continues

It has now been a quarter of a century since that wild beginning. Over the last 25 years, that original design has evolved into our current flagship model, the GXP Ball-Head. Yet, we still proudly offer a current version of the Ultimate Ball-Head, which remains remarkably close to Scott’s original 1999 design. It has proven to be an incredibly capable, durable, and reliable workhorse. While the Ultimate remains a specialized favorite for macro and astrophotography due to its unique movements, the advanced evolution found in the GXP is the premier choice for most modern photographers. Thank you to everyone who has been a part of our journey over the last 25 years. We look forward to keeping you steady for the next 25!