Which Travel Tripod?

BIGEYE

BIGEYE

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Looking at buying a travel tripod, and considering either a Giottos Vitruvian VRGN8255 travel tripod or a 3 Legged Thing 3LT X1.1 Brian Carbon Fiber Tripod. Which one if any should I go for, or are ther others I should consider?
 
BIGEYE said:
Looking at buying a travel tripod, and considering either a Giottos Vitruvian VRGN8255 travel tripod or a 3 Legged Thing 3LT X1.1 Brian Carbon Fiber Tripod. Which one if any should I go for, or are ther others I should consider?
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They both look expensive for a travel tripod, is it going to get much use ?
 
My thoughts were to sell it on after my hols. I already have a Velbon Sherpa 600 Pro, so might keep the best one and sell the other on.
 
Read the £100 carbon fibre thread. The OP bought a CF travel tripod on ebay and says its great.

The giottos came up top in a AP mag group test.
 
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I chose a 3LT Brian (despite the odd name!) for the following reasons:

1: For a travel tripod it is quite tall, but still folds up very small. Despite being just over 6 feet tall, I can comfortably use it without extending the centre column.

2: It is able to cope with an 8kg load, so a 7D and 70-200 is no problem.

Being carbon fibre, it is very light, but it does have a little "springiness", I guess the 5 section legs contribute to this.

It's not as stable, or "sophisticated" as our Manfrotto 458B, but its a fraction of the weight and half the size when folded - horses for courses.

I'd say it is a good compromise between stability, weight and small size when folded. All in all, I'm happy with it.

Chris
 
BIGEYE said:
Sadly only 2kg load.
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Unfortunately there's no universally accepted method for measuring how much load a tripod will take. It's going to depend a lot on whether you are keeping the central mass of the camera directly above the central column or not and whether you say that it's OK for the tripod to be compressed by the load as long as it settles.

Some manufacturers seem to understate (or use conservative models) and some overstate (or use wildly optimistic assumptions).

Which basically means nobody knows what a given tripod will hold ;)

Just buy a Gitzo..... :D
 
What ever you do don't put a pistol grip ball head tripod in your luggage if travelling to Israel.
 
The velbon didn't do very well in the group test.
 
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Just to throw something else in, I often travel with my Gorillapod SLR Zoom with ballhead to support my Canon 40D and Sigma 17-50 - a fairly weighty combo. Obviously it's never going to be as rock-solid as some of the alternatives in high wind for example, but in terms of its size and usability, as long as you can get a pretty steady surface and get it positioned right I've often found it to do just the job. One to consider anyway :) Cheers G.
 
graeme_ncl said:
Just to throw something else in, I often travel with my Gorillapod SLR Zoom with ballhead to support my Canon 40D and Sigma 17-50 - a fairly weighty combo. Obviously it's never going to be as rock-solid as some of the alternatives in high wind for example, but in terms of its size and usability, as long as you can get a pretty steady surface and get it positioned right I've often found it to do just the job. One to consider anyway :) Cheers G.
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I will have my 60D with grip, 24-70 f2.8L or 70-200 f4 IS as the heaviest combinations.
 
BIGEYE said:
I will have my 60D with grip, 24-70 f2.8L or 70-200 f4 IS as the heaviest combinations.
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OK not sure of the weight of your lenses however I'm assuming heavier than mine. Anyway was just a suggestion into the mix :)
 
A few years ago, i was in Thailand, and i went a bought one of the cheapo type Hama tripods, from a camera shop over there, like this one HERE it cost about £12 at the time, but it done the trick, i think they have about a 3.5kg weight load, it was surprisingly light, well it never caused me any problems anyway, it certainly done the trick though, and if you have a shutter release cord, you don't have to touch the tripod once set up for your shot, i had a D300 with a grip on, and a 18-200mm lens, when i had finished with it, i posted it back to my address in England, cost about £6, i still have it now, obviously not as good as a high end priced tripod, but it certainly worked pretty good for me. It maybe an idea, at a fraction of the cost :)
 
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