Travel tripod for Thailand?

Soldato
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I need a small, lightweight and 'budget' tripod for my trip to Thailand. Was thinking about a Gorilla Pod with the quick release mount but worried it won't hold a 40D with a 17-50 Tamron lens?

Any real world experience of these?
 
I've had a gorrilapod in the bag for years for just this purpose and it works fine, mainly gets used for taking timer photo's of me and the misses when there is nobody else around. I've not got a quick release as it's so quick to screw on and it happily handles my 5D mkii and Tamorn 28-75mm f2.8.

I've tried the bean bag/rucksack appraoch and the gorrilapod always produces better results with a lot less fuss plus it gan be used on all sorts of other ojects from trees to fence posts. I have a lovely set of the sun setting over Uluru taken with the gamera on the gorrilapod perched ontop of a slope topped post.
 
I've had a gorrilapod in the bag for years for just this purpose and it works fine, mainly gets used for taking timer photo's of me and the misses when there is nobody else around. I've not got a quick release as it's so quick to screw on and it happily handles my 5D mkii and Tamorn 28-75mm f2.8.

I've tried the bean bag/rucksack appraoch and the gorrilapod always produces better results with a lot less fuss plus it gan be used on all sorts of other ojects from trees to fence posts. I have a lovely set of the sun setting over Uluru taken with the gamera on the gorrilapod perched ontop of a slope topped post.

Exactly what I need to know, thanks :)

What GP model do you have?
 
Exactly what I need to know, thanks :)

What GP model do you have?

I have an SLR zoom and while obviously it's no replacment for a full sized Gitzos for professional landscape work it is great on a holiday and has let me get some shots that otherwise would not have been possible.
 
I have an SLR zoom and while obviously it's no replacment for a full sized Gitzos for professional landscape work it is great on a holiday and has let me get some shots that otherwise would not have been possible.

Perfect! I'll be using it for similar reasons to you so it's good to know it's up to the job. Thanks for your input :)
 
I've had a gorrilapod in the bag for years for just this purpose and it works fine, mainly gets used for taking timer photo's of me and the misses when there is nobody else around. I've not got a quick release as it's so quick to screw on and it happily handles my 5D mkii and Tamorn 28-75mm f2.8.

I've tried the bean bag/rucksack appraoch and the gorrilapod always produces better results with a lot less fuss plus it gan be used on all sorts of other ojects from trees to fence posts. I have a lovely set of the sun setting over Uluru taken with the gamera on the gorrilapod perched ontop of a slope topped post.


Funnily I have th exact oposite experience with gorilla pods. I had a loan of he SLR version from a friend and found it utterly useless, the mirror slap would vibrate the entire thing. While a bean bag happily absorbs the vibration from the mirror. It would work much better on cameras with a mirror up lock which is miss g on my D90.
 
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Funnily I have th exact oposite experience with gorilla pods. I had a loan of he SLR version from a friend and found it utterly useless, the mirror slap would vibrate the entire thing. While a bean bag happily absorbs the vibration from the mirror. It would work much better on cameras with a mirror up lock which is miss g on my D90.

Everyones milage will vary, I was reminded how useful the gorillapod was on a recent trip to morroco when I forgot it and tried taking some snaps of me and the wife using the rucksack to support the camera which was a total pain!
 
Everyones milage will vary, I was reminded how useful the gorillapod was on a recent trip to morroco when I forgot it and tried taking some snaps of me and the wife using the rucksack to support the camera which was a total pain!

A rucksack alone is a total pain, that is where the bean bag comes in handy because you can position the camera and get the angles you want easily, and then the bean bag absorbs the vibration from the mirror slap. Bean bags are used a lot by pros with big lenses as a method for dampening vibrations
 
A rucksack alone is a total pain, that is where the bean bag comes in handy because you can position the camera and get the angles you want easily, and then the bean bag absorbs the vibration from the mirror slap. Bean bags are used a lot by pros with big lenses as a method for dampening vibrations

Totally agree with you about the value of a good bean bag, used one myself in India and Srilank when photographing wildlife.
 
Preumably a lot of the stability of a tripod comes from it's weight. So is a £150 950gram triopod going to perform any better than £25 1.5kg one?

I've been using a gorilla pod, but it's now broken. I always used shutter delay with it to prevent mirror slap.
 
Preumably a lot of the stability of a tripod comes from it's weight. So is a £150 950gram triopod going to perform any better than £25 1.5kg one?

I've been using a gorilla pod, but it's now broken. I always used shutter delay with it to prevent mirror slap.

It is a mixture of weight, design and construction. You really want the center of gravity as low as possible, the legs forming an equilateral triangles and all connections to be solid. There is a rough rule of thumb that a tripod will hold steady about twice its weight, although CF will do better and aluminum worse. So typically a heavier tripod will be more supportive all else equal, but with a cheaper tripod things wont be equal (the materials will be cheaper, alu vs CF, and the rigidity will be less).
 
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The thing is to consider and i may said this here or somewhere else is that when you are traveling abroad taking images for just yourself and not being paid to do a specific job/location shoot, then most people wont be carrying anything heavier then a 5d type pro body with a 70-200 f2.8 lens. And even that case it is quite rare.

So in a nutshell, You dont really need a heavy tripod that can support a 1dx type pro body and a 500mm prime for travel purposes.
 
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