What tripod do you use and aren't many identical?

Felice62 wrote:

Jorginho wrote:

Hi I recently bought me a Rollei Traveller tripod. Nice, light and easy to use. Good for traveling. I have an E-M1.2 and a GH4 so they tend to be less heavy than their DSLr counterparts.

But I shoot timelapse with the GH4 and pics with the E-M1.2 on quite a few occassions (say noctilucent clouds). So I like to have another one. Also: the traveller is great for light weight but it is not as stable as a heavier or may be better designed produt. After all this tripod only costed about 90 euro's or so so you can't expect too much.

So now I found a Rollei C50i (aluminium or carbon) which ahs been replaced by the C5i. Which is te exact same tripod but cheaper and comes with only one Arca plate instead of two with the 50.

Looking into this closer It seems to me they are all made by the same manufacturer and I guess it is Sirui but may be Sirui is not the manufacturer but one of them. Does not matter.

Is this true, have you noted or has someone found an article how Rollei=Mefoto=Sirui=K&F=Geekphoto etcetc. The balheads all look identical too. But are they?

I am leaning towards the carbon fiber ones like these but then again they are lightweight. The aluminium ones are about 300-400 grams heavier.

I am looking at these:

Geekphoto carbon

Zomei…

Rollei C5i carbon

Apart from that: any recommendations under 150 euro/dollar?? Thx!

I was going to buy a carbon fiber tripod but one of my colleagues, photog and structures engineer in the aerospace industry, suggested I'd go for the alluminium version as whilst being heavier is more durable.

Carbon fiber isn't 'repairable' and in case of 'incident' it'll break eventually...

So I decided to follow hie advice and purchased a Zomei Z688.

I am glad I did. It is quite solid and breaks down to a monopod. I believe I got it on sale for about 60€, shipped.

Can't really complaint.

The aluminium version was 50 euro cheaper, not much heavier (250 gram) and it did not have any spikes. Both have this option to scrw a leg lose and make a monopod out of it. Also the height is important. They go to 1.60 m which is about right for me. Might be a little higher. They also had MeFoto, Sirui, Leo....., Manfrotto and cullman. The ones that looked alike were virtually indistinguishable from oneanother and the salesman said while he could not be sure he had the exact same feeling these all come from the same manufacturer. Only Sirui offers 5 yr warranty and Rollei 2 yrs which is the minimum they can give due to EUR regulations.

tonight here is a good chance for NLCs, I will shoot with the D800E, the Em1.2  and GH4. Fortunately it is no 10 C with a lot of wind, but 20 C with little wind at mid night. I just hope the noctilucent clouds will be here like they have been the last couple of days...