Travel Tripod

 

So Saturday morning saw me dragging the travel tripod out of the wardrobe to test its height and foldability in readiness for our first upcoming Camera Club meet on the 1st April to do some light painting back on site :-)

We'd had a Zoom meeting on Thursday evening and chatted about the prospect of meeting up in person once again now that work have sanctioned on site Wellness meetings again post Covid-19. Wow that seems a weird statement!

Anyhoo we decided that as we used to meet on the first Friday of the month back in the day that we would continue with this time slot. Simon has offered once again to waft the Pixel stick around, plus his home made version and anything else light wise that takes his fancy whilst we take some photos. Hence the need for a lightweight and easily transportable tripod.

Now don't get me wrong, I have numerous tripods in different heights and fold-up lengths, but this particular one was bought for how small it folds up - the legs fold back 180° around the centre column leaving it at a relatively short 30cm long.

Short enough I thought to fit inside Sydney, the new "camera bag" from Mia Tui. And yes, without the camouflage bag, it lays perfectly in the bottom of the bag. I have a padded camera drawstring bag to hold the M50 and several other padded items/wraps that I can lay in between the tripod and the camera to give a little more protection.

So this was me double testing the overall height and hanging Sydney from the bottom hook, just to see how that fit between the legs, whose spacing is quite narrow. When I had originally got it out of the cupboard and put it up it seemed shorter than I remembered... Having another look at the item on Amazon, which is where it came from, I realised that the centre column is in two sections - and I'd omitted to open it fully - doh! Overall height should be 132cm which is still shorter than me but taller than it had appeared on first opening.

Wondering if this omission to fully extend the centre column was what made me think the monopod part of it was too short when I'd intended to use it for the Christmas Lights? When I'd first thought of taking it, it had seemed to be a good height - but somehow whilst prepping it for that evening (some days later), it seemed waayy too short. Am thinking that somehow I didn't extend it fully? Mind you, setting up the monopod in the first place seemed a faff and I struggled to remember just how to do it. Having watched the video on Amazon again yesterday it wasn't too bad, semi-obvious really, but chances are I'll have forgotten again before it needs using again!

So, looking forward to a meet up with my fellow 'togs.