Matthew puts a selection of eight light-but-sturdy tripods that are ideal for travel through their paces in our Big Test.

Travel tripods have been going from strength to strength. Some of the latest models are compact and lightweight, yet strong and sturdy

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

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