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. Comparing Peak Design Carbon Fiber Travel Tripod vs Benro . Peak Design Shop All. Like, really really really nice. The Anchor System allows a strap to be quickly disconnected, so you can swap it from the tripod to the tripod bag in a few seconds if need be. He reached a total of 5,258 backers who put in $364,698. The jaws around the ball slot neatly into the area between the leg joints. 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. For those with larger mirrorless setups that use heavier lenses, and DSLR users, you are probably going to want this tripod as a second tripod. When you do this, there will always be a sacrifice to the tripods stability. The ball with a diameter of 3cm is firmly connected to the column. I measured that it takes about 15 seconds to unfold the tripod completely. When you consider purchasing a travel tripod of any type, this lower maximum height is another thing that needs consideration. Peak Design Travel Tripod (Carbon Fiber) Check Price 9 Vanguard Alta Pro 2+ 263CB 100 Check Price 10 Gitzo GT5563GS Check Price (Image credit: Luk Vatko on Unsplash) The best carbon fiber tripods are some of the best tripods that photographers can buy. This makes a taller and heavier setup, but it has the benefit of being faster to swap between using the built-in head and using a 3-rd party ball head that has additional panning features and more ergonomic controls. There are far better alternatives out there. Shop By Brand. You know a tripod is 3 legs that folds up. It's the shortest and thinnest with center column down, the Peak Design falls behind the others, whereas the others are more or less on similar hight You pull the 7/8" knob out and twist. Gitzo Tripod Legs (28) GNARBOX (9) GNARBOX Backup Devices (5) GNARBOX Hard Drives & Storage Devices (5) GNARBOX Memory Card Readers (3) Goal Zero (21) GODOX (355 . I travel up to 6 months each year. For a fairer comparison, add Gitzo's own 1382TQD head, which they also sell as a kit with the legs, and the whole package is only 160g heavier than the Peak Design. PL provides various digital photography news, reviews, articles, tips, tutorials and guides to photographers of all levels, By Libor Vaicenbacher 22 CommentsLast Updated On February 20, 2023. The included head gets you started if your budget is limited. For more info check our privacy policy. The biggest plus to the tripod is that it folds down small. For what it's designed for it's excellent. Several reviewers agree with you that it is a much better value and is more stable. And even your own tripod head. This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. My guess is that Peak Design would strongly recommend not disassembling the head and it provides no drawings of the heads inner mechanism. Its the only way that I use the tripod myself. Another reason to just use the included head is the cost of entry for the system. I bought mine right from Amazon with my own money. If you need a travel tripod, it comes highly recommended. It really just comes down to weight, and whether you want to carry that extra 307g on your hikes and travels. If you havent heard of it, you must have been hiding under a rock because this is easily the most famous tripod on the market. Lastly, we averaged out all of the reviews scores that we could find on these two products and compared them to other Tripods on the market. MSRP $599.99 $649.95 at Amazon More Details In Stock How does the Peak Design Travel Tripod perform in this regard? Thankfully, the Peak Design Tripod, despite being one of the tiniest tripods I've ever used, it's also surprisingly tall. It's $600. Add at least two items to compare My previous Cullmann tripod with the same kind of smart legs ended up in the bin because the legs wouldnt lock firmly after a decade of use. Sine the tripod head is compatible with Arca-Swiss style plates, its pretty easy to find a good L-bracket. Our pick: Vanguard Alta Pro 2+ 263AB100. The total weight was just under 6.5kg, which is approaching the 9.1 kilo load rating. Instead of just reducing the folded length as many travel tripods do, Peak Design has dramatically reduced the overall folded volume. Every bit shortly as Actually Right Stuff launched the Arise-14 travel tripod, I knew I would go questions about how it compares to the Summit Pattern Travel Tripod. And it also lacks stability when you have forces applied to the legs from any angle other than directly downwards. Best for use with multiple cameras: Vanguard VEO 3T+ 234AB. At $350, the aluminum Travel Tripod is slightly more expensive but also lighter than MeFoto's $220 GlobeTrotter Classic, but it's cheaper than Gitzo's $725 1.97-pounds Series 0 Traveler. If you want to keep the setup as light as possible, theres no better way to do it. Tel. Im late to the discussion, but Ive been using the aluminium version for a couple of years, and have just bought the carbon fibre version as I needed another tripod for lighting. Im sure its a good marketing strategy and works well to drive sales but Im inclined to agree. Most of them tend to use one of the smaller versions of Benro carbon fiber tripods when they're having to hike longer distances or they bite the bullet and take their big tripods with them. Putting a heavy head on a compact ultralight travel tripod would typically result in a setup that is far too top-heavy and unstable. Where this tripod really wins is the collapsed circumference. Need some help with selecting a tripod. At $449 its not a cheap piece of equipment, but it is easily one of the best tripod heads of any kind that I have ever tested for this site. I would also prefer a more positive locking mechanism for the legs than the twisting rings. However, if you often shoot on surfaces like slippery ice, loose dirt, or gravel, replacing the rubber feet with metal spikes is worth considering. Controls for the head are simple. 1K, 3K, & MT-11- Review . When I really need to travel light, I use the ball head that comes with the tripod. If needed, the stiffness of each lever can be fine-tuned with the included hex wrench. The PD is super small when collapsed, but a bit flimsier as a trade off and the Gitzo is a lot longer collapsed, but of course will be stronger. This gives a much smaller packed volume than most tripods out there. Flaws but not dealbreakers. I'm way more likely to take this with me when I go out shooting. The tripod is fitted with rubber feet as standard. Portrait-length prime is designed for APS-C-format Canon RF-mount mirrorless cameras and offers a 75mm equivalent focal length. His editorial work has been featured in publications all over the world, and his commercial clients include brands such as Nike, Apple, Adobe and Red Bull. If not mistaken, I paid just over $200 for the tripod and "Demon" ball head, including an excellent case. Thanks Andrew. The tripod is practically a cylinder when folded, so it fits easily into the side pocket of a backpack. Most people would consider being a standard feature on anything but the absolute cheapest of tripod heads. Yes portability is top of my criteria - no tripod is good if I have to think twice before packing with me. A key feature on the Peak Design Tripod is the speed at which you can extend the legs. For this head, Peak Design concentrated on making something that would be extremely light and low-profile when the tripod is collapsed. But before we dive into some initial impressions, here's the nitty gritty: the tripod will be available in aluminum for $350 and carbon fiber for $600 - both prices include a ball head - however you can score the tripod for much less by backing it on Kickstarter now. It is more of a triangle with rounded edges. It costs $40 and is compatible with the centre column. I have both tripods. Itll be interested to see if they expand the range to larger tripods. 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. A good tripod can be an essential tool for the traveling photographer, but when you're on the go size matters. The edges are grooved so you can get some friction, but it's annoying and I'm never super confident that it will be tight enough. Thanks Chuck. Discover a wide range of DSLRs, Mirrorless Cameras, Camera Lenses and Photographic Equipment with Ireland's Oldest Camera Store. When you've adjusted the angle of the ball head you have to spin a wheel along its horizontal surface to lock it in place. This requires the purchase of a universal head adapter for $30. Its the trigger point for the compromises. However, its nice to have the option if you want to do a lot of low-level landscape photography or macro work. The other downside to this design is that the head is designed to nest into the top of the tripod legs when fully collapsed. I lost the hex wrench after a few weeks. It is rated for 2 pounds more, but is 5 inches shorter when extended. Thats what Im testing today. I often try to use a tripod without extending the centre column as this always provides increased stability, therefore this requirement was a slight annoyance. Peak Design Tripod Vs Gitzo Traveller. In fact, I think it was less than 2 days before the starting time question hit my in-box. As you can see in the photos, the size of the Fotopro E-6H gimbal is a perfect match for the Peak Design Travel Tripod when you have the Universal Head Adapter in place. Ive had several claims with PD products and it was always really fast to get a free replacement! Hes a lucky guy, John! When designing the quick release mechanism on our Travel Tripod, a top criteria was to make sure it functioned well with all the plates that Peak Design has made over the years. He recently wrote a starter guide on how to pick up a vintage lens from the Soviet era, condensing almost a decade of hard-earned knowledge into an easily accessible resource. I have this and it is so much work to lock/unlock separately all those hundred locks that i barely use it. Its these kinds of small details that set Peak Design apart from everyone else. Larger 2 or 3-series tripods are more stable than any travel tripod. I love that you can latch and unlatch all of the legs at once really easily. Portability or sturdiness? Thats when he introduced his first product, Capture V1, on Kickstarter. Small size, sufficient height, good vibration absorption, high durability, easy handling, and light weight. , Thanks. However, one needs to be very careful in protecting the tripod head from sand and other fine particles. 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. I have used the tripod until recently with my trusty gimbal head, as you can see below. Aluminum construction So often I'd look at my old tripod and just be "ugh" and I'd leave it home. Back to Product List . Compared to all other Tripods on the market, however, the Peak Design Carbon Fiber Travel Tripod performed great. My old travel tripod, a Dolica 65", folded down juuuuust small enough to fit in my checked baggage if I jammed it in. Starting from a clean sheet of paper instead of being influenced by iterated designs from a current product lineup has catapulted Peak Design into the upper echelons of the tripod market. In order to minimize the folded size of the tripod, it features 5 telescoping leg sections that have a unique cross-sectional shape. This gimbal really is a jack of all trades. When everything is locked down tight the tripod is very stable. Then theres the matter of shooting vertical photos. I honestly dont really know why people suddenly forgot how to choose the right tripod, but I had enough conversations like this to know it is a thing. All of which phones are highly capable of capturing these days. You can see more of Libor's work on his Instagram page. Interestingly, hidden within the center column is a smartphone holder that you can pull out and clamp to the tripod head. $12million in Kickstarter funds is an insane amount of money for anything to earn, let alone a relatively high-end product from a (sadly) declining photography market. Gura Gear Kiboko City Commuter 18L The Perfect Camera Bag Found? The Ultralight Conversion Kit costs $40 and converts your Peak Design Travel Tripod into a tabletop tripod. Any conscientious buyer will be comparing the specifications of various tripod options. I have larger tripods in my closet but I do keep coming back to this one when Im packing my bag and feeling it getting heavier and heavier. A robustly built walkaround lens for daily use, this FUJIFILM X-mount lens is ideal for landscapes, cityscapes, portraits, street scenes, and more. Even some typos are fine for me. Anxious to compare it against my Peak Design. Im much happier with this setup than I was when using the included ball head. Several times I've noticed my camera (a Fuji XT-2 with the 18-55 lens) slowly slipping down. Comparing Peak Design Carbon Fiber Travel Tripod vs Gitzo . Disclaimer: The tripod was provided at no cost for this review. 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. They do look like VFM compared to the more expensive brands. It's a lot of money. So with that in mind, would you say Gitzo is better option (keeping money aside)? The price of the carbon fiber model tested is currently $650 at B&H, at the time Im publishing this review. You can use these weights to give a much more accurate comparison to any other tripods you might be considering. The tripod head itself works in the opposite way of most conventional ball heads. Period. Finally, if the original head does not suit you, any other head can be substituted. I get what they were going for, and it's a really clever idea. The biggest load I personally put on the tripod was a Nikon Z9 with a Nikon 400mm f/2.8 G plus an Atomos Ninja recorder with mount. There will be other larger and heavier tripods that offer a more stable platform. Despite its odd looks, this is a very capable head. The problem is that most gimbal heads are quite tall and heavy. The PD is one of the stiffest tripods for its size. Let's just get it out there. If your budget can stretch to it, I think the carbon version is worth the extra money for the weight savings.