I’ve found the perfect travel tripod!

Finally, i may say!

Well, actually i’m not a frequent user of tripods as i mostly shoot in daytime and i do street photography, but, you know that, when you leave it at home, then it will happen that you really need it. In less than one month i will be in Japan for another amazing photography experience and i want to be as light and comfortable as possible.

I my personal process of reaching the perfection in terms of gears, after switching from Lowepro to Ona leather Prince Street bags (just beautiful and stylish), from Canon/Fujifilm to Leica M, now it was time to also upgrade to a new tripod, from my old Manfrotto MKC3-H01, bought in Singapore after i lost my previous one in the bay..but that’s another story… 🙂

Ok, then, why i needed to change my Manfrotto MKC3?
First of all, the overall design is not so nice with that fat handle who makes the complete head to big. Furthermore, this is a good tripod for really light and small cameras, but the maximum weight of 1,5 kg that it can support is really low and the legs, wide extended are not so stable. Said so, i was looking for something really compact, very light, but still sturdy and strong and not too expensive.

After some researches on the net i was always having as the best choice, the Manfrotto BeFree, but  price of around 270€, still not so cheap and above my budget. But it seemed the only choice i had so I was almost going to take it, but, as i always do, i wanted to see it and feel it in real, so i went to a big store here in Luxembourg. Once by the shelf, I’ve spotted immediately the BeFree, well promoted, but, just beside, there was another very sexy and compact tripod… mmh.. i thought “that’s maybe a compact camera tripod, or it will cost a lot… cannot be an alternative to the BeFree…”…

Then I started reading the specs, label and playing with it, open widely and wooow, so light and compact and with a load capacity of 8Kg and carbon material … double wow.. The price is a bit still too much, 230€, but i may find a good deal at amazon warehouse… but, out of that…that’s the one! Once back at home i immediately checked on Amazon De, and i found a refurbished one at 168€… after few seconds it was already in my shopping basket and now here it is to my desk:

Rollei Compact Traveler No 1 Carbon

This is my new travel tripod!

Other than the great features listed above, there are some more that are very interesting, first of all, the possibility to transform it in a monopod, and that’s fantastic, because sometimes i wanted to have a monopod but it was not justified to buy a new one. Also the way it closes with the head turned upside down between the legs makes it even more compact ( only 33cm) and it weights less than one kilo!

And, the package includes some very useful spikes for stability on the ground, a 360 degrees ball head with an Arca Swiss compatible camera quick release and a shoulder strap. Last but not less important, a 360 degrees rotating center column hook ti attach additional weight.

What do i need more? It has everything i was looking for and not it is time to test it on the field.
Before that, check here some descriptive pictures.

That’s all, folks!

Sab