Most of us like to travel light – any outing is likely to be more pleasurable without a cumbersome tripod in tow. Indeed, conventional tripods tend to be big, heavy and unwieldy, so we often leave them at home. But, by contrast, travel tripods are made to be compact and lightweight. However, they have a reputation for being flimsy, relatively unstable and too small to enable a comfortable operating height.
The new breed of travel tripods aim to give you the best of both worlds. The vast majority have legs that swing upwards for stowage, so that the head is encircled by the feet.
This reduces the folded height by around 8cm to 10cm. Some models include as many as five sections in each leg and a two-section extending centre column, reducing the folded height even further, while still enabling lofty shooting.
The contenders
All of the tripods we’ve chosen for this Big Test are sold as kits, complete with ball heads. Again, there’s a space-saving advantage here, without the need for multiple locking levers that stick out from the head, or need to be removed to pack away the tripod. Even so, they’re not short on sophistication and many feature independent panning locks and adjustable friction dampers, in addition to the main locking knob.
Benro Slim Travel £110/$128
Slim by name and nature, it’s a smart buy for an ultra-light carbon fibre kit and remarkably inexpensive at the price
Although it predates the Rhino, Bat and Tortoise series of Benro tripods, the Slim Travel is ultra-compact and excellent value for a carbon fibre kit. The tripod is based on 5-section legs and a 2-section centre column, with the usual facilities of swing-up legs for reduced folded height and the ability to use one of the legs and the detachable centre column as a monopod.
The aluminium version of the kit sells for £99/$99 but the carbon fibre edition on test isn’t much more expensive, while shaving 130g off the weight. Indeed, at 1.07kg, it’s only about the weight of a 24-70mm f/2.8 zoom lens. Even so, the maximum load rating is pretty respectable at 4kg. The tripod folds down to just 32cm, making it easy to pack inside a bag, although the maximum operating height is a little restrictive at 130cm. The monopod is similarly short at 133cm, but least a monopod configuration is available.
The ball head is very compact yet performs well, but has neither an adjustable friction damper nor an independent panning lock. A neat finishing touch is that the blue accents of the head are also featured in twist grips for the centre column and leg sections, the latter being made from aluminium alloy.
Performance
Rigidity is good for such an ultra-lightweight tripod but not as impressive as in the heavier tripods on test. There also tends to be a little more
