Choosing tripod legs

You’ll see lots of discussions on various fora about which is the best tripod. Lets start off with my three immutable laws of tripods:

  1. Every single tripod has to balance four qualities, you just have to decide which two are the lowest priority and therefore you can (or must) compromise on

  2. When you buy cheap, you can end up paying twice

  3. A good tripod will last

Qualities

Height. Weight. Stability. Cost.

More stable is heavier or more costly.

Cheaper is less stable and/or heavier.

Light or cheap is less stable and/or shorter.

Less height may mean less weight and more stability, but it’s also less useful (see why you may need a BIG tripod here). I always consider the height with the column down - raising the column usually reduces stability so I would avoid a tripod where you are having to raise the column frequently.

Once you look at all the compromises, you may realise that one tripod may not satisfy all your requirements - the most obvious one being that a big, sturdy one may be unacceptably heavy/large for travel.

Bargain vs Total Cost of Ownership

When considering tripods, I personally think most amateurs and enthusiasts dramatically under budget for tripods, because it considered to be an ancillary bit of kit where some money can be saved (see law 1).

But, a good tripod should last for years. A premium brand one will usually be relatively easy to obtain parts for. But, unless you are constantly drenching your tripod in sea water and/or don’t bother ever doing any maintenance (mostly cleaning!), a quality tripod should go on for years and years. Possibly much longer than some people will hang on to cameras and lenses.

I would say budget between £500 and £1000 for tripod(s) and head(s). Spread that cost over 5 years, it’s possibly a small part of your photographic budget.

Recommended Tripods

It would be easy to say anything by Gitzo, FLM or RRS and end it here.

But let’s be realistic, there are a lot of more economic options available that are worthy of consideration.

So lets talk about what I have, and what I would replace it with today.

The big tall heavy one. I love my Gitzo GT5543XLS. Yes, sometimes it seems a little too heavy, but it is just rock-solid and is seemingly un-phased by gale force winds or driving rain. Going tall is a very good quality that you will really appreciate over time.

But….I probably would not buy it today, instead I would get the Benro TMA48CXL.

Check out the online reviews. You get 90% the height (column down) for 80% of the weight, and you could almost buy three for the price of one Gitzo.

I think this and the Benro GD3WH geared head, which I review in another post here would be my solid recommendation for a landscaper. Shop around and you might even get the pair for less than my minimum £500 budget.

Incidently, I find Mindshift Gears’ tripod carrier to be the best way carry a large, heavy tripod. Although designed for their rucksacks, it can be easily adapted to almost any rucksack - you just need attachment loops on the shoulder straps (which most packs have) and to fashion a loop on the pack to push the legs through.

The light but stable travel one. Oh dear, another Gitzo. I have the GT2545T Traveller, which was a big step up from earlier travellers, it is very stable and light and compact when legs are reversed. A few years ago I would have recommended this as a universal tripod for those who don’t need to go tall or use lenses longer than 200mm equivalent.

Today though, there are quite a few options - I could easily slip another Benro, or a Sirui in here now and have done with it. But, I’m not, because I think Novo Photo make just about the best value product out there today. I have a MP20 monopod (essentially 1 leg of their T20 tripod), and it is excellent, it could easily be mistaken for a Gitzo product at first glance. Impressively, for such a budget range, spares do seem to be readily available on their website.

In comparison to the shorter Gitzo GT2540T, the Explora T20 doesn’t seem to me to be quite as rigid but at less than half the price, including a bag, spikes and five-year warranty it is impressive and great value. Perhaps though the smaller £210 T10 tripod fits the bill more closely for this category.

All Novo tripods are also available in kits with their ballheads - these are similarly excellent, but I’ll have more to say about that in a future post.

The super-light one. There are times when weight takes absolute priority, such as long hikes and when taking a second ‘pod for vlogging etc. Until recently, I would have recommended the Benro Slim Carbon Fibre Tripod with N00 Head (TSL08CN00), currently around £80. It’s comes with a basic but functional ball head with arca clamp, goes reasonably tall, yet weighs 1 kilo all-in. For a light camera, it can work very well, just don’t expect super stability in all conditions. But, crucially, it’s performance exceeds it’s price-point by some margin.

Thing is, Benro themselves made this tripod redundant in my eyes, by launching the Benro Slim Tall Carbon Fibre Tripod (TSL08CLN00), which often can be found for only £20 more. It comes with the same head but is about 12cm taller with the column down, and 18cm with the column up. That may not seem much but in practice it makes a real difference. The weight penalty for that extra height is just 100g.

The do-it-all one. OK, you read this far but still not convinced you need more than one tripod? Simple answer: if height is a higher priority than weight, get the Benro TMA48CXL.

If cost or weight are higher priorities, get the Novo Photo T20 tripod. If budget is really tight, get it in the kit with head for a £70 saving on buying separately.

If your budget can stretch to it, then the Gitzo GT2543L Mountaineer comes close to an all-round balance of weight, height and stability, but at a cost.

Disclaimer

Unless I explicit state otherwise, I do not receive any incentive or inducement from the vendor/distributor of any of the products mentioned.

However, some of the links provided may be affiliate links from which I may earn a small commission which helps me to run this website.

Benro GD3WH geared head review

Before I switched from film to digital, for a few years with 5x4 and medium format film cameras, I used a Manfrotto geared head. Then digital came along, cameras got lighter and so I started to use ball heads.

As part of my move back to medium format though, I decided that a geared head was just what was needed, to slow me down and add some precision and be more deliberate in composing shots. As I was making a big investment in a big tripod at the same time, I decided to go for a quite economic solution, the Benro GD3WH.

The Benro bears a remarkable resemblance to the Manfrotto 410 Junior head I previously owned, except this time there is an arca-swiss compatible dovetail clamp built into the head, so no need to buy expensive conversion kits or (even worse) be forced to use Manfrotto’s own enormous and antiquated quick release plates. At the time of writing, in the UK the Benro is around £145 and the Manfrotto about £10 more.

The Benro looks well made and feels solid when you take it out of the trade-mark bright blue Benro box, yet doesn’t seem overly heavy. Referring to the manufacturers specs, the Benro is around 400g lighter than the Manfrotto. But at over 800g, it is still quite heavy given it’s max stated load of 6Kg, in comparison to a ball head, which would be substantially lighter and more compact for a similar payload. That is the penalty for the extra precision though.

Like all similar designs of geared head, on a tripod with a large top platform like my Gitzo Systematic 5 series, a spacer is needed to raise the head up to allow for the full range of tilt. Fortunately Benro have thought of this and offer the matching GDHAD1 spacer, albeit at an additional cost of £20.

In use now for about 6 months, I have found the head to be very satisfactory. Like the Manfrotto mentioned earlier, it’s a little ‘agricultural’ in design and feel compared to some of the more exotic (and expensive) geared heads out there, but it definately provides the required precision and rigidity.

I have one dislike, which is that the arca dovetail opposite the clamp is not continuous - there is a gap in the middle of about 30mm - which means you really need to use a plate or L-bracket at least 50mm wide, and pay close attention that it is centred in the clamp, otherwise there is a risk that the camera won’t be clamped securely, and/or the clamp will be damaged when it’s tightened. This is not really a problem for me, as all my L-brackets have dovetail sections that are sufficiently long, but it might be something you should consider if you are using a small plate on your camera (a 70mm plate is supplied with the head).

One other observation: I have seen quite a few pictures with the camera mounted in what I consider to be the ‘wrong’ way round on this head. I find it best to have the clamp knob pointing in the same direction as the lens, as then the knobs for the 3 axis are nicely placed and highly visible. If you flip the camera round, so the clamp knob is facing you, that’s no longer the case.

Overall, I am extremely pleased with this head. I would even go as far as to say it’s performance is beyond what you might expect at the price. There are other geared heads around at similar prices, but I haven’t yet found another one that is geared in all 3 axis, apart from the Manfrotto. I am so pleased in fact, I am considering buying a second as a spare, just in case. But, may be I’ll wait and see if Benro make a Mark II version without that interrupted dovetail.

If you use these links to buy the Benro GD3WH or GDHAD1, I will receive a small commission which helps to keep this site running.

Disclaimer

Unless I explicit state otherwise, I do not receive any incentive or inducement from the vendor/distributor of any of the products mentioned.

However, some of the links provided may be affiliate links from which I may earn a small commission which helps me to run this website