****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
I have bought 3 of these tripods at different times. There are definitely more professional tripods out there, but for the money, this one is really hard to beat. The only one that I don't use anymore got broken when I buried it underneath a bunch of tools in the back of my truck and tried to pull it out and broke one of the legs...The fact that you get a monopod and a tripod at this price is an AWESOME value.I actually did eventually breakdown and buy a more professional tripod, and what I found was that the legs on this tripod are much easier and faster to put in position quickly. This makes height adjustments fast and easy.The monopod feature on this tripod is also more convenient than my more expensive tripod because its a completely separate unit. On the more professional tripods, you have to unscrew one of the tripod legs and then disassemble the center mount and then screw those two pieces together to form the monopod. On this unit, you just loosen the set screw on the side of the tripod base and pull out the fully assembled monopod and you are ready to go. Zero fumbling around.Eventhogh I own a much nicer tripod, this is still my go-to setup because of speed alone. It takes me a fraction of the time to pop the legs out and collapse them down. I guess you can say that the speed of setup comes at a cost, and the cost is the amount of play in the legs. But once the tripod setup I've never had a problem with the legs moving.I would say that this unit's biggest shortcoming shows when you mount heavier equipment. I have mounted things like a full-size ring light. It struggles to hold heavy setups and it can slip. The quick release can stretch the housing that it sits in if the equipment is too heavy. I have not had this happen because I am always sure to position the equipment in such a way that the weight is centered.If you are not using heavy equipment or mounting cameras with really long lenses, you should be fine.
