Best budget/starter tripod?

Dont waste your money on a cheap starter tripod, you'll only end up changing within a very short period of the time.

Your best bet would be the Redsnapper tripod as seen advertised on here, great piece of kit for the money, I think it is around £80 for the tripod and ball head, I use the tripod and think it is great value.

Well worth checking out.
 
As said above, the Redsnapper continually gets rave reviews and you'll often see those more experienced with tripods saying you can only have two of the following three attributes with a tripod;

Affordable, lightweight, stable.

This Redsnapper deal seems to be the most popular unless you require the quick readjustment afforded to you by a ball head. Remember, as well, that there is a 10% discount for TalkPhotography members. You just need to e-mail Redsnapper when you make the order to get the money off.
 
Astraeus said:
As said above, the Redsnapper continually gets rave reviews and you'll often see those more experienced with tripods saying you can only have two of the following three attributes with a tripod;

Affordable, lightweight, stable.

This Redsnapper deal seems to be the most popular unless you require the quick readjustment afforded to you by a ball head. Remember, as well, that there is a 10% discount for TalkPhotography members. You just need to e-mail Redsnapper when you make the order to get the money off.
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Yep, with a budget of less than £200 (for the legs only), I'd say you could only get two out of the three ideal attributes that a top drawer tripod has, (the first and third listed above), but for your budget, the carbon fibre (CF) range starts. CF is significantly lighter than aluminium and brands like Giottos do CF tripods for around £200.

Redsnapper also do CF tripods for around £150. Not sure whether these are sturdy. They're still reasonably heavy for CF IMHO but lighter than their standard versions and are undoubtedly aesthetically better..

Hope that helps in some way :)
 
kitschenalia said:
wow, thanks everyone, what a range in price!! Will have to think about this one :-)
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Do bear in mind the advice I see being espoused time-and-time again on these forums - think what you'll be using the tripod for. If you're going to be spending days walking with it on your back, pay more attention to it's weight. If you'll be driving up somewhere, setting it up and then driving off, don't sacrifice stability for the sake of having it 500g lighter. You really won't notice the weight difference until you start lugging it around with you.

The forums are full of suggestions for what to go for. A quick search in the Talk Equipment forum for "tripod" will pull up page-after-page. Digest what you want from there and you'll be in a good position to make a choice. :thumbs:
 
thanks Astreaus.... toughie - I do a lot of hillwalking - hmm, let's actually be honest here - I DID a lot, my toddler and 4 year old are not quite up to it so it's smaller hills right now ;-) We live in beautiful countryside in Aberdeenshire, so perhaps lots of pretty sunsets and the like, even from the top of the hill behind my house, only a 5 minute walk though - but potentially I *might* be strapping it to my back to carry it.... despite the great landscapes so far I seem more interested in portrait work, but still ideally would like a tripod for this.... I want to try at Christmas to get a cityscape if possible as we're down in London to see my hubby's family. A night city scene.... we'll no doubt tube into London rather than drive. I need to really think about this one don't I!
 
I bought a cheap tripod, and within weeks I bought a better one (well got a better one for last xmas)
 
I have a Hahnel Triad 100, which was just over 60 quid from eBay, but is built like a tank. solid, reliable and the comes with a built in monopod. bloody heavy though.

Here they are
 
Basically, the heavier the camera, the more you will need to pay.

As others have said, don't be tempted to buy the cheapest thing on the market as you will soon discover its limitations.

If you end up deciding to spend around the £200 mark, you could do a lot worse than look at Manfrotto equipment.

Rob
 
I bought my cameras a few weeks ago and it cam with a cheap £20 tripod. never really gave it much thought just pleased i got the cam and a tripod with a few other bits and bobs for little money.
Now the problem started when I decided seeing as there was some clear night sky I would take some pics of the moon.
Well lets just say i went online yesterday and ordered up a Giottos 9351 from jessops for £99. my £20 is the pits

Spike
 
OK, thanks folks.... there's a random tripod been put into a big pile of my stuff ?!?!?!?! in my office (I haven't even dared mention my new hobby to my PhD supervisors given my deadlines) and I have no idea why (we moved office and there's all this stuff that they're trying to get shot of/find a place for)... the only use of a camera by any of the researchers that I can think of is a video recorder for research studies.... it's certainly NOT mine, but I might just borrow it for a bit and see how it goes. I can't even tell you its name or anything until I'm in later in the week... I'm not even 100% sure it's for an SLR camera to be honest. The other thing is that I've promised to do is try out my hubby's telescope tripod - just to keep him happy, I can't see it being appropriate at all....

As I have to forward this list of Xmas ideas to family today I'm going to put Jessops vouchers, which means that a) they can choose how much to spend and b) I can spend it on a flashgun if either of these other tripod options prove viable! But if they don't, a tripod is my first choice, I think I need it most (although I think I need extra lighting lots too!).
 
the tripod i was very tempted to get is a camlink tppro24a that can be had at jessops for £70, seems robust and sturdy enough. im in the same boat as you though, ive had two cheapy tripods and now realise its not the quality im missing out on, its the flexibility. when you spend a decent amount of money on a tripod you can get features like the split legs and centre columns which would be useful as i do alot of fine art and portraits.
 
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