Self-leveling Acadalus tripod head keeps your horizons straight

A good tripod head can cost you several thousand dollars, but this one isn’t just hand-made and high-quality. It’s freaking robotic.

Well, maybe robotic isn’t the right term, but the Acadalus uses a built-in inclinometer and motors to level your camera just right, without any help from you, you fallible, fleshy human. After it’s leveled itself (which according to PDN Gear Guide it does just fine) you can adjust it with the buttons there. This isn’t for moving video shots, though — I don’t think it would work well for that.

If it sounds excessive to you, consider that (as the creator notes) we used to have manual focus and exposure on every shot, and now it’s adjusted for us — often to the setting we would have chosen anyway. For a tripod, you want a perfectly level shot 90% of the time, why not make it easy on yourself? I mean, assuming you’ve got a spare $5000.

[via Gadget Lab]