Phaim (fāme) — Larry Becker’s Blog

I Love My Tripod!

Posted on 10 February 2010

One of the first things I realized when I started shooting DSLRs is that, to get a really tack-sharp image, you need to use a tripod in lots of situations. (A remote trigger or cable release helps too.) One of my first tripods was a $45 model from Best Buy or WalMart (I don’t remember). It was an aluminum tripod with two plastic clips on each leg for locking the leg segments. The smallest sections at the base of each leg were quite spindly, the plastic quick-release plate wasn’t solid like a pro-quality metal one is, and the overall feel of the thing was just cheap. It wasn’t long before I went ahead and invested in a good set of legs. (Actually, my wife did. It was the #1 thing on my Christmas wish list.) The nice thing for me was that, because of my job, I had been to all kinds of photography trade shows, and I had looked at countless tripods for over a year. And since I wasn’t in a rush, I talked to all the vendors and played with just about every model tripod on the market.

There are a lot of things I have a hard time spending top dollar on, especially if there’s a less expensive solution that’s almost as good as the top of the line solution. For example, I currently own 3 SB600 speedlights (and not a single SB800 or SB900) and the versatility the 600s offer me is great (if you want to know more about that decision, visit this post from last year.) But if you want to shoot anything with natural light (other than snapshots), or a long zoom, or portraits in a studio, a good tripod is critical. — This is no news flash. There are all kinds of articles on almost every photography site about how you need to go ahead and get a decent set of tripod legs. — If you’ve shopped for a tripod, you’ll quickly find that you can spend $500 or $600 without trying very hard. And $800 to $1000 isn’t out of the question for some lighter weight, name brand graphite legs (not including the ballhead).

However, I only plan the occasional hiking trip with my tripod, so unlike a regular wildlife or landscape shooter, the extra pound and a half of weight I carry vs. graphite tripod, has proven over the past couple of years to be no big deal. Still, the tripod legs I have, Manfrotto 485B NeoTec Pro, sell for $350-$400 these days, so this isn’t really a report on some “bargain” tripod legs. It’s just that there’s so much to like about these legs, I have to tell my friends. (We’re friends, right?)

Anyway, the NeoTec tripod is incredibly solid and versatile. The center column is removable and can be mounted upside-down if you want to get your camera really close to the ground. The legs can be splayed wide to get pretty low, and then you remove the center post and mount it horizontally. But the really cool thing about this tripod is that there isn’t another one anywhere, from any manufacturer, that has leg mechanics like this. Every single tripod from every single manufacturer requires you to adjust a clip or tighten a cylinder clamp on each joint of each leg when you deploy all the legs of the tripod. Six adjustments every time you extend the legs. This is the only tripod I’ve seen anywhere that allows you to just pull the legs to the length you want, and they stick! Rock solid too! To collapse the legs, you press a button at the top of the tripod (one button for each leg) and they can be collapsed. It’s easy to press all three buttons at once too, so collapsing the tripod from fully extended to collapsed takes about 1 second for all three legs! This is absolutely the fastest tripod I have ever seen when you want to deploy it or put it away. And it’s incredibly easy to handle.

If you need the lightest possible graphite legs for easier hiking, this isn’t your tripod. If you think spending more than $50 on a tripod is crazy and there’s no way anything is worth eight times as much as a cheapie from the big box stores, then this isn’t your tripod either. But if you want a nice tripod with the coolest leg mechanics anywhere, look at the Manfrotto 485B NeoTec Pro. (Oh, and there’s a NeoTec monopod too, but I don’t own one of those… yet.)

Here it is at B&H and Adorama.

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