Leg design and materials
The size of a tripod, its weight and its rigidity - and also its general usability - are largely tied up in its legs. These may come in two, three, four or even five sections. The greater the number of sections, the smaller the tripod will be when folded. However, while three-section legs are reasonably quick to extend, four-section legs are more of a nuisance and five-section legs (such as those found in super-compact tripods) are such a nuisance you may never use them, or at least avoid using them unless you really, really have to. In addition, the greater the number of leg sections, the more flexible the legs become. The join, or clamp, is a point of weakness. It takes very expensive engineering and materials to make these properly rigid.
Above left is a straightforward three-section tripod. This will give a good compromise between size when folded and rigidity. Above centre is a 'digital' tripod with five section legs and a lighter construction.This is smaller when folded and easier to carry around, and fine for today's lightweight digital compacts or maybe a D-SLR with its standard kit lens. Above right is a heavier-duty 'travelling' tripod, again with five-section legs to make it more compact when folded. Compactness is important, but don't underestimate the extra fuss when setting up caused by the extra leg sections.
Legs come in different materials. Aluminium is the cheapest but also the heaviest. It takes pretty thick and therefore heavy aluminium tubing to make rigid legs. Basalt is a fashionable but expensive alternative, and carbon fibre more expensive still. The advantage of these materials is that they offer the same rigidity with less weight. Do be wary of 'cheap' basalt and carbon fibre tripods, though, because the manufacturing techniques required to make proper use of these materials are complex. Cheap basalt and carbon fibre legs won't properly exploit the strength these materials offer.
Tripod makers spend a lot of time talking about weight, and so much so that it's easy to attach too much importance to this. No tripod is light or easy to carry, and even the heaviest is manageable enough once you set your mind to it. The most important thing is that your tripod should be tough, simple and quick to set up. The Uniloc 1600 is a prime example. It's crude, inexpensive but tough. It's big and awkward to carry, but poetry in motion to use.
Some tripods have leg braces. This looks like a good idea in that it should provide extra rigidity. However, it's often a bad sign. On a giant broadcast TV video tripod you might expect it; on a low-cost stills camera tripod, it's a sign the whole edifice is so flimsy it needs all the bolt-on stability it can get.
Centre columns
A tripod's centre column has two jobs. The main one is to provide a little extra height when the legs are already at full extension, but some tripods go further: if the centre column can be rotated in some way, it can also be used as a horizontal boom, which is invaluable for photographing natural history subjects in awkward niches, for example, for table-top photography where the spread of the legs stops you getting the camera right up to the table, and for overhead shots looking down on your subject.
Usually, centre columns slide up and down freely and are locked in position with a knob. This is quick and straightforward. Some cheaper tripods have geared centre columns operated by a fold-out crank. This might look like clever and sophisticated but it's really just cheap gimmickry that's awkward and slow to use. The best design is the simplest, and the quality comes from the materials and the engineering, not the complexity of the mechanism.
Tripod heads
The tripod head is the part the camera is mounted on and which provides the movements. Tripod heads come in two types: ball (and socket) and three-way (pan-and-tilt) heads.
Ball heads are the simplest and quickest to use. The ball mechanism allows movement in any direction when it's released and is then locked in position with a single knob. It's fast to use and very compact, but it's difficult to make fine, precise adjustments in any single direction.
This may not matter much for most types of outdoor photography, but there are situations where it's a profound limitation. One is panoramic photography, where the camera must be rotated horizontally for successive shots, and another is sports photography, where the camera's being turned along the horizontal axis to follow a moving subject. This is where a pan and tilt or three-way head is more suitable.
Three-way heads have three independent axes of movement: horizontal (the 'pan' axis), vertical (the 'tilt' axis) and laterally, which turns the camera on its side for vertical shots and can also be used to quickly level the camera on uneven ground. The two major movements are the 'pan' and 'tilt', hence the common name for this type of tripod head. Three-way heads are bulkier, heavier and slower to set up and use, but the independent axes of movement are sometimes invaluable, particularly for precise still life work or close-ups.
It can be useful to have a quick release (QR) system, but not always. These enable you to flip a catch to release the camera and take some shots handheld, and it's a lot quicker than unscrewing the camera in the conventional way. However, it generally takes longer to fix a quick release plate to the camera than it does to screw the camera to a simple ball head, so it's swings and roundabouts.
Cheaper tripods often come with heads as standard. This saves you money, but they're not usually of good quality. With the better tripod brands you buy the legs and the head separately. This costs you more, but you get to choose the type of head you prefer.
Tripod brands
With tripods you certainly get what you pay for. You should be looking for rigidity, simplicity, ease of use and speed of operation, and you won't get all of these for less than £100 or so. Dealers may stock a number of low-cost 'unknown' brands, but they're not likely to be much good. There are a relatively small number of 'proper' tripod makers to look out for. Velbon and Slik are relatively low-cost but decent brands, with Giottos offers a step up with solid build and innovative design. Manfrotto makes a wide range of good mid-range and pro-level tripods, while sister company Gitzo produces top-quality tripods designed to last for decades but with prices to match. Benbo is something of an outside with a very unusual 'curved bolt' design which offers great flexibility but can be confusing at first, and this same basic design is used in Uniloc tripods. Both are excellent for outdoor natural history work.
