Buying a Tripod, Try #2
So, you’ll note that I dropped the “inexpensive” description from the article title (http://www.stupiphany.org/?p=4), but I wound up getting a very nice one without spending too much money. Since I wrote the previous article, two things happened: (1) I went and bought a Slik Pro 700DX tripod, and (2) I finally heard back from Amvona, who shipped me a replacement set of legs.
The Slik Pro 700DX cost me about $130 from Adorama and appears to be a very nice, sturdy, fairly heavy tripod. I’ve got another cheap Slik tripod, and was actually a bit nervous about buying another one, based on the sturdiness of it. However, the old Slik is obviously made for light camcorders and point-and-shoot digital cameras, not heavy DSLRs. From to picture at Adorama, the 700DX looks pretty similar, but it got consistently good reviews everywhere that I looked, so I decided to take the chance. I’m glad I did, the 700DX is very impressive, much larger and sturdier than it appears in the pictures. The legs extend long enough for me to use a camera which standing without having to extend the center post at all. The three-way head tightens very securely with my heaviest lens (the Digital Rebel XT with a Canon 70-200 f4 L lens, about three pounds total), and the head can be replaced if you need a ball head instead. The center post can come out and be remounted upside down for shooting down at the floor, and it also comes in two pieces that can be unscrewed to get a short center post. There’s a release on each of the legs to allow the legs to come out to a very wide angle, and with the short center post and the legs widened, I can shoot from very close to the floor (15.8″ from the floor, according to the specs, which sounds about right).
I finally received the promised Amvona AT-858B legs. It looks like Amvona made good after sending me a broken set of “open box” legs, by sending me what appears to be a new set of legs. Although their customer service is abysmally slow, I appreciate the fact that they did finally make the situation right. The legs themselves are moderately sturdy, nowhere near as sturdy as the 700DX, but much less expensive as well. They do have an annoying fault, though. The angles on the three legs are just not quite the same, so when you extend the legs fully, on a flat surface, the bubble level shows that the tripod is not quite level. You can level it by shortening two of the legs (opposite the one that has a slightly larger angle), but it’s a bit of work to get it right. The tripod is also just about as heavy as the 700DX, but the legs do not extend as far, and when they are extended, you can tap them and see a noticeable vibration. So, all in all, I’m not all that impressed with Amvona tripods.
My wife and I took a cruise at the end of January. Here’s a photo I took of the cruise ship atrium, late at night, with the Digital Rebel XT using a Tokina 12-24 wide angle lens, mounted on the 700DX configured low.
