PEAK DESIGN TRAVEL

A highly innovative travel tripod that’s available in both aluminium and carbon fibre editions

£315/$350

Peak Design is best known for its high-quality camera bags and pouches, but has hit the ground running with its first foray into world of tripods. The Travel Tripod is available in aluminium and carbon fibre editions, both positively scream innovation. There’s nothing new in swing-up legs, but those of the Peak Design tripod are specially shaped to fit around the centre column. As such, it saves a lot of empty space.

Another space-saver is that the head is an integral part of the tripod, but nevertheless gives a full range of movement with excellent speed and simplicity in setup. And if you’d rather use a different head, there’s an optional Universal Head Adapter (£28/$30). The centre column itself splits in two for ultra-low-level shooting and has a weight hook at the bottom. You can remove the weight hook to access a mobile phone mount that pulls out and attaches to the head.

Another neat trick is that you can quickly and easily remove all but the top section of the five-section legs, and fit stubby feet from the ‘Ultralight Conversion Kit’ (£21/$30) making an even smaller kit.

Performance

In our tests of the aluminium version, rigidity and stability proved excellent, adding superb performance to the versatility of the tripod. According to Peak Design, the carbon fibre edition is 20 per cent more stable, as well as being 290g lighter in weight, although it’s much pricier, at around £530/$600.