Tripod's +Heads

[zlinuk]

Where do you start when choosing a tripod and head. My criteria is fairly simple in as much as it will be for "general purpose" use, must be able to support up to about 2.5 kg and must be able to fold down to about 600mm so that it will fit in / on my rucksack. Buying the bag was easy using the lowepro "bag picker" tool, why can't the tripod manufacturers do something similar.

If anyone want to offer a few suggestions I would appreciate it.

Thanks

 

[andrew720]

I think the best thing to do is to go to your nearest camera store with your gear and try some out. Some things to look for are sturdiness, weight, versatility and ease of setting up.

 

[Dr_O]

Where do you start when choosing a tripod and head...

You start and end here

Accept no substitute nor waste your money buying 2 or 3 imitations when you can get it right first time in a few clicks

 

[woof woof]

I think that it's important to think carefully about exactly what you want to do with a tripod.

For example I bought a perfectly good and quite expensive Manfrotto and hated it because it's conventional centre column between the legs design made it impossible for me to get my camera into the positions that I wanted. Once I changed to a Benbo my positioning problems were solved.

Heads also need thinking about. I went from pan to ball for compactness but I hated the dreaded ball drop that made precise positioning next to impossible so I then switched to geared.

There's a lot to think about and sadly you might not get it right first time.

 

[zlinuk]

I think that some proper research is required, it seems that the one constant in photography is that everything you want / need is expensive.

Thanks for your input.

 

[j3w3ll3r]

I just bought a Manfrotto which is great for everything except macro, which is currently what i find myself doing most :bonk:

 

[angusb1]

There's a lot to think about and sadly you might not get it right first time.

Agree with this, after buying a cheap one and borrowing one for a while I think I know what I want now - borrowing one or buying a second hand one to see how you want to use it is a good idea before stumping up the money if you can. A tripod bought second hand from ebay or similar can be resold later, all its cost you to try it for a while is the postage.