Group Test

Find the perfect balance between lightness, strength, operating height and price

Have tripod, will travel – our sticks of the best models to take on your next photo holiday and achieve super-sharpness

Most of us like to travel light. Any outing is likely to be more pleasurable without a heavy tripod in tow. Conventional tripods can be unwieldy, so we often leave them at home, where they’re of no use. By contrast, travel tripods are made to be compact and light. Traditionally, though, they’ve often been relatively unstable and too small to enable a comfortable operating height.

The new breed of travel tripods aims to give you the best of both worlds. Many have legs that swing upwards for stowage, so that the head is encircled by the feet. This reduces the folded height by around 8cm to 10cm. Some models also include as many as five sections in each leg and a two-section extending centre column, reducing the folded height even further, while still enabling a useful maximum operating height.

All of the tripods we’ve chosen for this test are sold as kits, complete with heads. Ball heads are the most common, as there’s a further spacesaving advantage. Matthew Richards