jgbreezer

That 7dayshop branded tall (170cm?) tripod I mentioned in previous post broke due to my carelessness pulling on the tilt handle when it was done up once (was only £10, oh well), so I replaced it with another better tall one (Giottos MML3290B) which has since (after a few months) had one leg section stop fail and drop out the pole segment when extending it once, have read of this happening on several other Giottos tripods, but otherwise its been great, and is amazingly tall and feels otherwise stable and solid enough.

Steve789 (or others interested) - if you haven't already found something; for reference, my first monopod that lasted ok was a 7dayshop own-branded one, though that I think is a rebrand of a fairly generic tall one that goes to about 7' high and comes in 2 versions - either a permanent tilt head that isn't all that strong but might cope with the bins (obv. you don't need panning on a monopod, you just twist the pole), or one with a generic 1/4"-20 Whitworth-standard screw on top (as fits most cameras and all binocular adapters I've ever come across). That obviously would need a head of some kind, eg.: * a ball trigger grip style as mentioned/other plain tilt-only head (often built for monopods, not too expensive for a good quality high-load-bearing one as they're a simple design) * or generic ball head (though I'm not sure they work as well on monopods when the whole pole can move around more easily, pivotting at the ball, careful it doesn't slip sideways and get awkward) * or even (though your bins are too big for this example I'm fairly sure, others are pretty expensive otherwise) a gimbal type head like the Manfrotto 393. A reclining chair with arms (to rest your arms on) might be a completely alternative option instead of the monopod - notably more to carry but saves your neck and provides somewhere to rest your arms on. There's even a "neckpod" from 7dayshop (and others probably) but its somewhat plasticy - I've tried it, and the strap attachment came loose while using it with my camera (not even a very big lens) at the Olympics in 2012 after only a few months of ownership - avoided carrying anything big in through the gates. Let us know what you go for in case I've missed it in my research and to add to the collective advice on here! My tripod is high (176cm) at full extension and still copes with my 1.8kg 15x70 binoculars at that height as long as I don't pull sideways on them too much, but doesn't fix the neck thing on its own. Some tripods have centre columns you can rotate (Vanguard, Manfrotto, Benro and Giottos though I'm not a big fan of Giottos quality) in one way or another so you can extend the binoculars out to the side and not have the legs in the way - a colleague at work does that with his notably smaller bins and a small ball head - but of course you don't get the height then and need to be sitting down underneath. And it doesn't help stability with all that weight hanging off to one side - maybe a weight/whatever bag or stones you have to hang between the legs to help counterbalance/reduce centre of gravity would be a requirement, which of course adds to the weight the tripod is carrying and needs to have capacity for!

I have 15x70 bins that I love and I agree about it being hard to stay in good viewing positions sometimes. I occasionally resort to lying down on my back if I'm outside looking near the zenith, as I don't carry a chair around but so want to find a good one I can lean back in safely to look up (that I can also carry around on the underground/bus in London - some fishing seats have almost been inspiring enough, so far, but seems a bit limiting). My tripod head for bins has been recommended for monopods - its a trigger-grip ball head, I have the Manfrotto 222 and a Calumet 7033 copy of that (better than the Chinese copies which get a couple things wrong/missed, I also found it cheaper on a bank hols sale weekend). It avoids the adjustment for the ball head being too near the binoculars and in the way but it does mean the binoculars swing a fair bit from horizontal to zenith especially once you add the tripod adapter. The squeezing the trigger to move them thing is a bit tiring sometimes if you hop lots from one thing to another but its good finger muscle exercise... I got a new tripod earlier this year which I also aim to use for hobbyist photography that goes to pretty much 6', I'm 6' tall so by the time I swing the bins down on the head they're still just about high enough for me to see vertically underneath. I do recommend (as I've read in my binocular astronomy research) to find a tripod that is quoted for a capacity about double what your bins weigh, in order to be solid enough with the extra magnification too - camera tripods usually expect a camera to be horizontal and while some makes will allow for big lenses and centre-of-gravity to be offset, cheaper/less well respected brands might over-egg their capacity a bit to only consider regular camera use, and you want to make sure they can hold it solid at higher than the usual camera zoom lens lengths - you need longer term stability to keep watching it, not just a moment when you click the shutter (dunno whether that really changes things lots but I noted it).