Good tripod ?

[Ken82]

I’m looking for a good tripod for my lunt 70mm binos, can anyone point me in the right direction ?

im currently using a sirui monopod with spider but I don’t feel comfortable just leaving it for others to look through. 
 

thanks 

[PeterW]

Tripods have the issue of not being so easily to get under to look to higher altitudes... I use a manfrotto 290 with a 500ah head, good for heavier bins.

 

peter

[Ships and Stars]

The AZ4 tripod is excellent for binos. I had 25x100s on a star adventurer L bracket no problems other than making sure altitude clutch was securely tightened.  Plus, you can easily swap out the binos for a small telescope like a 130 or 150 Newtonian or small to mid size refractor. Very versatile. 

[Ruud]

I have a Chinese tripod, a COMAN made by INNOREL. It is nearly identical to the RT85C here: https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/32836039382.html (scroll down a bit for info in English).

I bought it in a camera store for €280. I wanted to see it before buying because I was a bit suspicious about the quality.  Normally tall, quality carbon fibre tripods are very expensive and the ball head on this one  alone already costs €134 - see here. 

It turns out that sometimes too-good-to-be-true is nevertheless true! I was immediately impressed by the tripod. I bought it  and tried it out with a 5kg refractor which it carries as if it is nothing. It's incredibly rigid and vibrations dampen in less than a second. The legs are 33 mm thick and made of 8 layers of carbon fibre resin, the metal parts are machined aluminium-magnesium alloy, and the ball in the head is 44 mm in diameter.

With the central column extended it reaches 187 cm high. One of the legs unscrews for use as a monopod. That  is 196 cm tall with the central column attached to the leg. INNOREL sells their tripods under the brand names Coman, Xiletu, Innorel, Jieyang, QZSD, Cayer, Sirui and no doubt many more. They come in various sizes and are all clones of each other with minor variations. Just wait till one goes on sale. 

For my WO 73mm refactor I use the tripod with a video head (one with a poke to point it with). This is my super birding scope set up.
With my binoculars I use it as a monopod together with a light weight binocular head. It reaches high enough for me to look straight up while standing.
I find the included ball head too heavy (522 g), though it is a good one. It may prove handy for my camera.

So +1 from me for a tall Chinese carbon tripod/monopod from China..

 

 

Edited January 27, 2020 by Ruud

[RT65CB-SWL]

I use a Manfrotto 055PROB with a joystick/trigger/ball head.  

Edited December 4, 2019 by Philip R