Tripods Peak Design Travel Tripod

Mike G

All-Pro
Location
West London
Name
Mike Gorman
Well folks the dreaded GAS has struck again, and I splashed the cash on a PD Travel Tripod the Carbon Fibre version . Bloody expensive I know but I would only fritter the money away on Wine, Women and Song! 🤗

Initial impressions are very good, and the tripod comes complete with everything one would need!

PDTT.jpg


PDTT2.jpg
 
Rest in peace, Mike. ♥️ I'll keep this thread up.

And here it is, the last purchase of 2020.


I took my acquisition to the basement of the building because I don't have many opportunities left to do so, yet I always planned to shoot some.

This is my first sturdy tripod with a ballhead. My previous one is a super cheap 13 € one. Peak Design Travel Tripod is not super cheap. I went for the CF version going at 499 €. CF stands for, according to what it says on the tripod, "Carbon F'n Fiber".

I did think long and hard about other very compact travel tripods that would lose in the diameter compactness but win with traditional ballhead design.

2021-01-05 (Tue) 17-27-19.jpeg
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I have zero experience about ballheads and sturdy tripods. My initial 15-minute test wants to tell me: this is a sturdy tripod but the ballhead is not as nice as I'd imagine an ordinary ballhead would be. It's not silky smooth to turn around and there's a tiny hint of play when you fasten it. I did expect this from watching an hour of various youtube reviews.

Despite what people say I didn't find it particularly cumbersome to work with portrait orientation even though the movements "are limited" this way. I'm not a panorama shooter so a lot of those issues will miss me by a mile.

2021-01-05 (Tue) 17-37-40.jpeg
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My 13-euro tripod is a lever design just like PDTT. I really like levers. It is easy to adjust a leg, it's quick to open and quick to pack up. But somehow when I was extending the tripod down in the field I managed to pull from the wrong place and the entire leg came off. What's weirder, I put it back in and it seems to be just like before.

Overall it's not bad.

But perhaps this is not a thing that would turn things around for a tripod hater.
 
Rest in peace, Mike. ♥️ I'll keep this thread up.




I took my acquisition to the basement of the building because I don't have many opportunities left to do so, yet I always planned to shoot some.

This is my first sturdy tripod with a ballhead. My previous one is a super cheap 13 € one. Peak Design Travel Tripod is not super cheap. I went for the CF version going at 499 €. CF stands for, according to what it says on the tripod, "Carbon F'n Fiber".

I did think long and hard about other very compact travel tripods that would lose in the diameter compactness but win with traditional ballhead design.

View attachment 244930

I have zero experience about ballheads and sturdy tripods. My initial 15-minute test wants to tell me: this is a sturdy tripod but the ballhead is not as nice as I'd imagine an ordinary ballhead would be. It's not silky smooth to turn around and there's a tiny hint of play when you fasten it. I did expect this from watching an hour of various youtube reviews.

Despite what people say I didn't find it particularly cumbersome to work with portrait orientation even though the movements "are limited" this way. I'm not a panorama shooter so a lot of those issues will miss me by a mile.

View attachment 244929

My 13-euro tripod is a lever design just like PDTT. I really like levers. It is easy to adjust a leg, it's quick to open and quick to pack up. But somehow when I was extending the tripod down in the field I managed to pull from the wrong place and the entire leg came off. What's weirder, I put it back in and it seems to be just like before.

Overall it's not bad.

But perhaps this is not a thing that would turn things around for a tripod hater.
These are beautiful photos; colors, textures, shadows. A reminder (to me anyway) not to overlook mundane subjects that are close at hand.
 
These are beautiful photos; colors, textures, shadows. A reminder (to me anyway) not to overlook mundane subjects that are close at hand.
Thank you.

A tripod definitely helps here. You can photograph the "dark spots" of your home without introducing issues with artificial light. Yesterday I was looking at an overflowing trash can with new eyes, with my newly acquired tripod next to me. :D

My old place, it's a characterful house built in the seventies. After a few years I woke up to the realization I should shoot some of these quirks so that the details won't get lost. So I shot some about the dressing room, the sauna, even the bathroom. I'm planning on a book about the house, although I planned to do that two years back, now on the backburner.

My current (rental) apartment doesn't have the character to take photographs about.
 
Thank you.

A tripod definitely helps here. You can photograph the "dark spots" of your home without introducing issues with artificial light. Yesterday I was looking at an overflowing trash can with new eyes, with my newly acquired tripod next to me. :D

My old place, it's a characterful house built in the seventies. After a few years I woke up to the realization I should shoot some of these quirks so that the details won't get lost. So I shot some about the dressing room, the sauna, even the bathroom. I'm planning on a book about the house, although I planned to do that two years back, now on the backburner.

My current (rental) apartment doesn't have the character to take photographs about.
Mike, thanks for the information. Even with a tripod, my interior photos would fall far short of yours :)
 
Well folks the dreaded GAS has struck again, and I splashed the cash on a PD Travel Tripod the Carbon Fibre version . Bloody expensive I know but I would only fritter the money away on Wine, Women and Song! 🤗

Initial impressions are very good, and the tripod comes complete with everything one would need!

View attachment 221239

View attachment 221238
Very pretty! I lust after one but certainly don't need it. The tripod I have only gets hauled out for indoor ('studio type') macro work, and that's a pretty rare event in the last couple of years.
 
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