Peak Design Travel Tripod Carbon

This is the first travel tripod that I am particularly excited about from the very first moment. I have the Carbon version. The price is hefty, but well worth it to me.

My old aluminum tripod was not very heavy in itself with 1.7 kg and also worked fine. But this Peak Design is really of a different order. Really special how compact this tripod is when completely folded. It is not only the length but especially the small diameter (about a PET bottle) of the collapsed state that makes it so special. I often photograph while travelling, during long walks or bike rides where the light weight and compactness are very desirable. At the same time, the tripod must also be sufficiently stable to be able to work with, for example, my video head plus heavy telephoto lens or my star tracker (plus counterweight). And that all goes well with this Peak Design!

There are a few minor drawbacks: they have designed a completely new ball head for this tripod, which is also a lot more compact than a conventional ball head. Beautiful and very innovative, but somehow the headset feels less 'premium' than the rest of the tripod. For example, the ring and the locking mechanism are made of plastic and I would have preferred (certainly for this price) something made of airplane graded aluminum or the like. And that locking mechanism to secure the headset doesn't quite feel like it will last 25 years under the influence of rain, sand and mud. I don't want to exaggerate this though: the quality will probably be good enough, but for this price I expected more from the headset. The carbon legs, on the other hand, are really beautiful and very sturdy.

By the way, I also bought the Universal Head Adapter (25 euros) so that I can use another third party ball head or my video head. That all works perfectly.

I did compare with many other tripods, this one for travel s the best: compact & weight