PEAK DESIGN TRAVEL £359/$379

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

Peak Design is best known for its high-quality camera bags and pouches, but really hit the ground running with its first foray into tripod territory. The Travel Tripod is available in aluminium and carbon fibre editions, both of which are highly innovative. The Peak Design tripod legs are specially shaped to fit around the centre column. As such, there’s a saving in empty space when folding down the tripod.

Another space-saver is that the head is an integral part of the tripod, but nevertheless gives a full range of movement with a good turn of speed in terms of setup. And if you’d rather use a different head, there’s an optional Universal Head Adapter (£28/$30), which you can use with or without the centre column. The centre column itself splits in two for ultra-low-level shooting and has a weight hood at the bottom. Another neat trick is that you can quickly and easily remove all but the top section of the 5-section legs, and fit stubby feet from the ‘Ultralight Conversion Kit’ (£21/$30) making an even smaller, lighter kit. Back in full-sized trim, spiked metal feet are available as an optional extra (£21/$30).

Performance

The aluminium version’s rigidity and stability proved excellent. It’s a simple tripod to use and versatility is very good, but comes at the expense of pricey optional extras. Even in basic trim, the aluminium and carbon fibre versions are comparatively costly to buy.

SPECIFICATIONS

CONSTRUCTION ALTERNATIVE MATERIAL MATERIAL Carbon, Aluminium 1.27kg, £530/$600

WEIGHT 1.56kg

FOLDED HEIGHT 39cm

MAX, MIN OPERATING HEIGHT 152cm, 14cm

MAX MONOPOD HEIGHT N/A

HEAD ADJUSTMENTS Single locking knob BALL HEAD Integral2

QUICK-RELEASE PLATE Peak Design PL-S-3

LOAD RATING 12kg