Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. Was thinking of just getting the kit head that comes with it at BH. I have both tripods. An alarming number of people have asked me whether this tripod can replace all their tripods, or replace things like a 3-series Gitzo tripod, and of course there the answer is no. This clamp is Arca-Swiss compatible, so it will work with any of your existing tripod plates and L brackets when the two stopper screws are removed. If you dont really care too much about those two criteria, this is the wrong tripod for you. For more info check our privacy policy. The backpack strap mount is amazing. I would also prefer a more positive locking mechanism for the legs than the twisting rings. Instead of using traditional cylindrical legs, Peak Design sought to shape the leg in such a way that the centre column would be nested closely within the folded legs. If you plan on putting a camera setup on this tripod this is pushing up towards the specified weight limits, then yes, I think this is well worth doing. No items to compare. I recommend using an L-bracket instead of a conventional plate, because otherwise, there are some restrictions on the range of movements once you flip the head vertically. A great waterproof tripod: Sirui W-1004K10 Tripod . I guess you have more tripods, depending on what you are doing and restrictions due to weight & luggage etc? Your own goals need to line up with the tripod designers goals for this to be the right purchase for you. Perhaps in the next $12M pre-order V2 by PD! The flip locks are made entirely of metal for increased durability - a feature you'll rarely find on other tripods - and open and close smoothly, without any 'snapping' in the motion. As such, the actual weight of the tripod isn't going to be that clear from the single specified weight on the PD website. In terms of strap choice, the Leash or the Slide Lite makes the most sense. For what it's designed for it's excellent. You need universal head adapter to use other tripod heads (Libor shows that he used his gimbal with it). Love Peak Designs, their attention to detail is excellent. Im not a robot, there will always be some typos . Peak Design's latest offering is one of the more expensive travel tripods I've seen, but it's well-built, compact, and as cleverly designed as you'd expect. Home Gear Reviews The Ultimate Peak Design Travel Tripod Review! The problem is that most gimbal heads are quite tall and heavy. 1K, 3K, & MT-11- Review . From a speed perspective, the Peak Design Travel Tripod blows the competition out of the water. But again, that's just me. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. Fotopro is a Chinese tripod company that makes some very high-end equipment. Almost every time you buy a tripod or a ball head youll find one or two hex wrenches in the box. As an ornithologist, Libor has studied the avian diversity of the South American Andes. In other words, for every gram of weight you save, you spend an extra 83cents! This is not to deny its usefulness. If you think you can get by with the height reduction, this is another cool upgrade for your tripod. The large and heavy Manfroto now stays at home for still life/product photography. One other thing I should mention is value. The whole tripod will then weigh just 0.774 kg (1.7 lbs), although the maximum height is now just 36 cm (14 inches), or 58 cm (23 inches) with the center column up. When averaged out, it earned a rating of 9.0 out of 10, which is much better than the 7.6 review average of Tripods in general. Putting a heavy head on a compact ultralight travel tripod would typically result in a setup that is far too top-heavy and unstable. For use when the situation dictates that an ultralight setup is the best tool for the day. These are the questions you will have to ask yourself, and the answers will be personal. Something similar can be said of most of the other higher-end carbon fiber companies out there today, like FLM, RRS, and many others. The peak design is the newest and most uniquely designed of the 4 (it is super compact although the Gitzo is a bit lighter). Wie schneidet es aber gegenber einem vom uns sehr viel gebrauchten. What moves is the rest of the head, to which you mount the camera. DPReview TV: Travel Tripod Shootout (Manfrotto, Peak Design, Gitzo and Sirui) Ulanzi MT-34 at 1690| Unboxing Ulanzi 3 in 1 MT-34 Extendable Stick| Ulanzi Best Tripod. Ive noticed no wibble during long exposures, even when its been noticeably windy, although those shots are usually at quite short focal lengths. Another way to think of it is, for a 270 g savings in weight, you pay $270 extra. This article was a great help and helped me in my purchase. I may replace the ball head with something different, which obviously defeats the purpose of such a tiny tripod but hopefully it'll be easy to remove and reinstall. It is rated for 2 pounds more, but is 5 inches shorter when extended. I'm sure this post doesn't break much new ground but most of the negativity I've seen has been towards the legs and price and not a lot of talk about the ball head. Larger 2 or 3-series tripods are more stable than any travel tripod. So without further ado, let's give . I got a Sirui with a compact ball head. Its a heck of a jump from $350 to $600, for a tripod that performs the same and looks almost identical to boot. Or, if you are willing to rely on natural height assistance from rocks or fallen trees when you need extra height. And there could very well be a case one day when I want to do such a thing myself. But I'd rather deal with some inconveniences than miss shots because I tried to hand hold because I left my other tripod at home. The E-6H gimbal is absolutely tiny compared to every other gimbal on the market, yet it is rock solid and has by far the smoothest pan and tilt motions of any gimbal I have ever tested. Im using the Ulanzi Zero Y carbon fiber. You can also remove just one of these stopper screws to allow you to slide the tripod plate in from the side. Just by way of example, my beloved Sony 20mm f/1.8 G lens weighs 370g, and there are lots of other small lenses out there that have weights in that range. This requires the purchase of a universal head adapter for $30. Cover this product: 3-Year Protection $65.99 Learn more And you can attach Peak Design anchors to use the mount with Peak Design straps . In this case, giving you a max height of 130.2 cm. For sure this is on me for not tightening up the ball head more, but it's really not the easiest thing. Sample Images: On top of the head is a bubble level to help you get a nice level horizon. This clever outside-the-box thinking has truly produced the most compact full-sized travel tripod I have ever seen. The gitzo gt1555t is about on par with the peak design- wider but shorter- I'd call it a draw overall although the gitzo head is superior in usability but overall dimensions are wider. Get answers to your questions in our photography forums. Minor height adjustments using the center column are useful for composition and shooting over objects like fences. Thanks for the detailed, honest review. These will snap into the ground like the spikes of an ice pick, potentially increasing the tripods stability. If you want to keep the setup as light as possible, theres no better way to do it. My guess is that Peak Design would strongly recommend not disassembling the head and it provides no drawings of the heads inner mechanism. November 3 rd, 2022 59. chevron_rightshow all Lab Tests. I wouldnt go for a tripod thats much lighter than this one from Peak Design, at the given height. After going through a similar exercise recently I settled on the Leofoto LS-284C with a Sirui K-10x ballhead and couldn't be happier. Sure, our own Travel Tripod is pretty sweet and works with all Peak Design accessories, but we also designed the plates that come with our clips and straps to be compatible with 3rd party tripods - whichever one you may own. Even some typos are fine for me. Ive had several claims with PD products and it was always really fast to get a free replacement! To me the big fail of the PD tripod is the non standard clamp. I purchased just the legs on ebay for $269 and the ballhead on Amazon on a great sale for $99. The Gitzo is 35% stiffer and benefits from a standard ball head. The tripod might be all great, but Its plate and the fact that you need a special tool to screw it on a camera is a no go for me. Compare Peak Design Carbon Fiber Travel Tripod vs Benro TMA38CL Long Series 3 Mach3 Carbon Fiber Tripod vs Gitzo GIGT1545T Traveler Series 1 Carbon Fiber Tripod vs FEISOL CT-3442 Tournament Rapid . The downside to the low-profile head design is that it doesnt have an independent panning base. Also compatible with smartphones. The standard head works with arca swiss plates out of the box. This is still a travel tripod, and if you are planning on buying one then you must be prioritizing small size and light weight, otherwise, this isnt the right tripod for you. Dont forget the cost. The gimbal in question is the Fotopro E-6H. So often I'd look at my old tripod and just be "ugh" and I'd leave it home. In fact, I find it generally more impressive than the overall stability of the legs, and Im confident you could comfortably lock a heaver-than-specified load as almost any angle. I don't have a blog or a Youtube channel to make a review so I figured I'd just do it here. Cloudflare Ray ID: 7a2d79334b7b3718 It is rated for 2 pounds more, but is 5 inches shorter when extended. Although the idea that I paid $600 is also a motivator for me to get some use from the thing. Thats when he introduced his first product, Capture V1, on Kickstarter. I can't imagine it will be easy to adjust with gloved hands. Portability or sturdiness? The Peak Design Travel Tripod works with many (but not all) 3rd party Arca-compatible tripod plates. Several table-top tripods. Ive found the PD head better than suggested in the article: it holds my Nikon D850 with a battery pack and a long lens perfectly firmly and, slightly loosened, works reasonably well to pan. Despite having bigger legs, the Peak Design Tripod has a circumference of 27cm, against 34cm for the Sirui. The tripod head itself works in the opposite way of most conventional ball heads. Its a very good tripod, but the light weight means it does lack some stability with heavy camera setups. Please To be clear, Im not a PD hater. The package includes the tripod, a handy neoprene soft case, a hex wrench, and a bushing removal tool for maintenance. Another benefit is that the tripods built-in head than acts as a leveling head, enabling you to quickly set up a perfectly flat base for the second head for panoramic photography or filmmaking. Thats what Im testing today. Depending on your head choice, its very likely that your standard ball head will also have a higher load capacity and just generally be more ergonomically friends than the somewhat fiddly head that comes with the tripod. If you understand what you are buying, and when such a tripod makes sense to use, you are going to be very happy indeed with this purchase. The hex heads are the same sizes as the new tool. Although designed for this tripod, you could use the phone holder in any other Arca-Swiss compatible clamp. I bought the Peak Design tripod (carbon fiber) after a few enthusiastic reviews when it was really new on the market. Excellently, Id say. Most unique feature is 3 legged center column that can act as its own tripod. This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. Lets dive in! Raising the center column to adjust the tilt of the ball head is annoying, especially since you have to really crank the knob on the side to lock it in place. since when having choices is an unfortunate thing? Anxious to compare it against my Peak Design. Small size, sufficient height, good vibration absorption, high durability, easy handling, and light weight. MSRP $599.99 $649.95 at Amazon It looks like Peak handed out review tripods to Youtubers like crazy so right from the jump I'm inclined to not trust the reviews. Peak Design was laser focused on making the most compact possible, fully featured tripod. Carbon Travel Tripod: $599.95 The PD tripod alongside the RRS TFC-14 and Gitzo GT1545T. Its light, small enough to fit into the side pocket of my bag. Having said that, the PD is nowhere near as stable as my Gitzo, but that is to be expected for a travel tripod compared to a full tripod setup. I bought mine right from Amazon with my own money. By submitting a comment this form also collects your name, email and IP address so that we can prevent spam. This helps to keep the collapsed length of the tripod down, but it means that you have to extend the centre column about an inch before you can adjust the angle of the tripod head. In that sense, I think it does surprisingly well even with decidedly-not-travel setups like the one above. Any ball head that you place on it, can be held in securely by a trio of set screws that come up from beneath the head. I am amazed there was $12M of total business out there for new travel tripods thats what 4000 pre-orders from increasingly rare animals (photographers who actually pack tripods, etc). Every time I write about or even mention the word tripod in conversation to someone, the same question always follows: How does it compare to the Peak Design Travel Tripod?. Additional Ways to Use a 3rd Party Ball Head, The Perfect Gimbal Head for the Peak Design Tripod, in-depth guide to the best gimbals on the market, Peak Design Aluminum Travel Tripod Tripod. Like many others, I have bought too many tripods. In order to minimize the folded size of the tripod, it features 5 telescoping leg sections that have a unique cross-sectional shape. For fast deployment, the five-section aluminum leg cams can be released at the same time. My Oben has a clip on the legs, but I always worry itll come off and I wont notice the keys should go in the center column like the phone adapter. The jaws around the ball slot neatly into the area between the leg joints. I guess thats a little bit of a spoiler as to my feelings about the tripod, but theres still much to learn aside from my overall opinion. For many thats a very high driving factor. MSRP $599.99 $649.95 at Amazon. That being said, there are a lot of great tripods that are cheap(er than the PD) and really stiff, like the Leofoto LS-224C, the CTC Centennial 2 Aluminum, and the new FLM tripods. TBF I watch mostly landscape photography youtubers, and I haven't seen a single one even try the PD tripod, even for travel purposes. Im glad you are getting on well with the built-in head. I'm surprised I don't see more people talk about it, or maybe there's something about the company I don't know. Its definitely worth a look if you have a store near you, or a friend that has one. There is only ONE tripod that collapses to truly "tiny", weighs less than 3 lbs (1.3kg), and yet is still decently tall when fully extended. It would be a mistake for most people to downsize from a larger 2-series or 3-series tripod to this one because you will find that it is less stable. Two tripods of the same design made from different materials provide an interesting comparison. It can hold its own against the much more expensive Gitzo Traveller and the RRS TFC-14/TVC-14. The Ultralight Conversion Kit costs $40 and converts your Peak Design Travel Tripod into a tabletop tripod. Boasting impressive specs, the tripod height adjusts from 5.5 to 60", folds down to only 15.5", holds up to 20 lb, and is constructed from carbon fiber. Libor works as a biology teacher, guide, photographer and photography course lecturer. But how does the tripod perform in the field? [CDATA[ That tripod is the Peak Design Carbon Fiber Travel Tripod ($599). The Feisol CT-3441S is three ounces heavier but 25% stiffer and ~$200 cheaper. Namely, if you want to take a panorama, for example, the tripod head cannot be moved only horizontally. The Comparison the Peak Design win the compactness battle. Both things that require that perfectly level starting point. The capacity of both versions of the tripod is the same, and as far as I can tell from my own testing, there is really no measurable difference in the stability that is provided by both options.