Best tripod for my budget

<p>I have an old Velbon aluminum tripod from the early 80'ies. It's inherited so to say, and I've never invested in something of my own. However, I feel that it is not stable enough for a 300mm lens on a cropped sensor. It just wobbles even when I shoot from indoors. <br>

I'd like to get a simple tripod:<br>

1. The weight is not important, I'm not a hiker.<br>

2. I don't need a center post.<br>

3. I'd like it to go down quite low, as well as high enough (~160cm).<br>

4. It would be nice with a hook with which I could hang a weight and stabilize it further.<br>

5. And my budget is around £300 (excluding head)<br>

Is there anything out there that meets this specification. I looked at a bunch of tripods at Photokina but they all seems to be out of my price range. And I don't even need it to be in carbon fiber.<br>

Thanks!</p>

<p>Just a cheapskate's thought. With your current tripod have you tried filling a plastic gallon sized milk jug with (sand, water, gravel, something heavy), take a piece of rope and thread it thru the handle of the jug, then loop it around the base of the head on your tripod so it hangs 12-36'' centered between the legs? Although I have a high end tripod for some work, I do keep an old cheap, light tripod handy, with my empty milk jug for those occasions when I have a long hike, long lens (usually a 400mm), and need the tripod stability.</p>

<p>The old saying is you can't do cheap, stable, and light at the same time but 2 should be possible. I started with a big Manfrotto aluminum tripod. What I have now is a small Gitzo carbon fiber which is pretty stable as long as I'm not using a long lens. But those big Aluminum tripods (you could even look for a used one which may be a Bogen if it's older) is heavy but stable. Mine was a Bogen 3221 with pipe insulation on the legs to make it easier to touch in cold weather and to make it easier on my shoulder. I bought the shoulder strap and a quick release head.</p>

<p>Don't use it these days, I'm just not young enough.</p>

<p>I have various Manfrotto tripods, including a 058 which is great for studio work, but for out and about use I keep coming back to a Slik 88 with a Giotto head – perfect for my needs, shooting with a DSLR, sometimes with a 400 mm lens, and with a 4 x 5 Crown Graphic. From an engineering point of view, ribbed U-channel tripod legs seem to offer a more favourable strength/weight ratio than round-section metal tubing.</p>

<p>Manfrotto 055XPROB fits your budget and your demands. But first decide whether you want a twist lock or lever lock mechanism to fasten the leg sections. Twist lock is faster to set up but they need re-tightening every now and then and your fingers can be painfully stuck between the mechanism.</p>

<p>Given your brief I'd probably look for a used aluminium Manfrotto, Slik etc of substantial weight . Should be available cheaply because fewer people use tripods these days (IS) and the fashion is for weight reduced carbon fibre which I'd guess is the opposite of what you need. </p>

<p>The thought does occur though that the problem at 300mm might be to do with the head rather than or as well as legs. If you don't have an Arca Swiss type head with their much better clamps (or Really Right Stuff, Kirk, etc) then you can get cheaper, heavier alu legs and put the saving towards a great head.</p>

<p>Adding weight to the tripod as suggested will probably solve your problem and leave the money for beer.</p>

<p>Every tripod buyer needs to read what Thom Hogan says about it:</p>

<p>http://www.bythom.com/support.htm</p>

<p>He can save you $700. ;-)</p>

<p>Thank you all for sharing tips and experience! <br>

I will do as suggested and add weight to my tripod first and yes, I should perhaps switch back to the old video head because it is a much bulkier thing. It might work better.<br>

If I still feel I need a new tripod, and I do. I'll save up to get me something of good quality. Having had the current tripod as long as I have, a new one is sure to outlast many, many camera bodies. I should perhaps invest properly in this gear.<br>

The old one is a bit worn though - it has leg clamps that are very tough to maneuver and even greasing them has not helped. </p>

<p>The talk of "saving $700" is rather misleading! There are fundamentally three classes of tripods, firstly very light amateur models which can work well with a small point-and-shoot camera and nothing else, secondly "serious" tripods in a range of sizes and weights, made of metal, and thirdly tripods which are in almost every respect the same as the ones in the second group but costly four times as much because they are somewhat lighter and made of carbon fibre!<br>

Buying a carbon fibre tripod is a good way of cutting down weight if you trek for long distances, it does not allow you to defy the laws of physics, in particular the principle that the application of a certain amount of energy to an object with a certain mass results in a certain amount of movement (vibration). In extreme cases, a camera on a carbon fibre tripod may be so top-heavy that it has a considerably greater tendency to blow over in a wind.<br>

One very cheap way to cut down vibration, particularly with long lenses, is to support the camera and lens at two points. You would be surprised how little vibration you get with the camera on an average tripod and the front of a long lens resting on another tripod, even a very cheap one.<br>

I repeat my recommendation of a Slik 88 - whatever you buy, try to carry out some field tests with friends' equipment beforehand – the results may surprise you.</p>

<p>A comment on Mr Hogan's homily that's been around a long time and isn't improving in the retelling. Not everyone needs or will ever need a top of range Gitzo with an expensive head. In that context the warning that buying other than at the top will lead to tears and repeated purchases is simply wrong for the thousands of people whose equipment, style of photography, need for absolute quality or extent of tripod use means that a middling Manfrotto or Slik or Velbon and a half decent head will meet their needs forever. <br>

And even when it doesn't its too much to ask that people forecast what their tripod /head needs might be in a decade's time. I imagine that a lot of people making good use of a 400/600mm lens today might not have been able to forecast that possibility with any certainty years ago. We all change what we do, become attracted to new subjects, and so on. <br>

The thing one must do is not try to fool oneself about what you need to hold your camera/lens steady in the conditions (terrain. weather, angles ) in which you work to try and save a few $/£. And to recognise that a decision to change a camera, buy new lenses, introduce a new subject, might carry a hidden cost of keeping the camera stable. </p>

<p>Completely agree with David. It strikes me as absurd to claim that only Gitzo or RRS are the tripods worth buying (as I seem to remember Hogan suggests). Possibly, in the past, this was true but there are now many Asian made tripods that will accomplish what is needed at a much lower price point. I am often of the opinion that many keen photographers buy a much bigger tripod than they need simply because "they never know what they might need in the future", "better safe than sorry", and because the experts tell them to do so. As a result, they end up with a huge tripod that they never want to take out and therefore rarely use.</p>

<p>It also is worth saying that tripods are not the quite the essential purchase they used to be in the days of film. I remember Ken Rockwell made stink a decade ago or so by suggesting in his hyperbolic fashion that "no one needs a tripod anymore". I wouldn't go that far, but I do see what he was driving at.</p>

<p>Watch the used market or estate sales.<br>

I picked up a used Bogen/Manfroto for less than 10% of the new price, and it will hold any camera that I have.<br>

Granted it is a heavy beast and only suited to studio or close to the car photography, not for packing about the gardens or hiking. For carry, I have a lighter tripod.</p>

<p>To me, the going low and high is the challenge. Then you start to restrict the tripods and you get more boxed into certain tripods. Think about how low you NEED to get. Then think about getting TWO tripods. One a small tripod for the low/tabletop shots, and a 2nd general purpose standing height tripod.</p>

I somehow have accumulated something like 20 tripods. I hardly ever use a tripod, however. What I did need was a more solid tripod for shooting with >400mm lenses.

What I found that actually worked was an STS Pro-72 (e.g., link). I call it my "Iron-Boy" tripod. Not in the slsightest can it be call "light".

When you decide what you want, I suggest looking on line. I was able to purchase excellent Manfroto tripod, monopod and heads on line for less than half of what they should have cost retail.