Some years ago Thom Hogan wrote an article that said, more or less, anyone who has a serious need for a tripod will eventually end up with a Gitzo. If you buy a cheaper make you’ll end up on an expensive upgrade path often via several intermediate steps. Therefore the least expensive option he says, if you are going to use a tripod a lot, is just to buy a Gitzo first.
Of course, what does he know?
I can totally appreciate that and understand the point being made, as well as it being driven into the forums and chat rooms a lot. As previously stated I am only entering this for a hobby (to get me outside of the house for exercise and something to do as the UK is going back into national lockdown). I would have hoped this illustrated this is not for any sort of job or career in photography. As a student hoping to enter 5/6 years of university education, and with no current source of income due to covid I would much prefer to stick to a budget right now. £100 is a lot even for some people regardless of the quality it will purchase. I do not even know if I will enjoy using one, or the enjoy the genres of photography associated with tripods seeing as though it is literally the first tripod I will ever own.
With the upmost respect it is pretty unhepful to recommend someone to go and buy a (probably minimum) £300-350 tripod, which is obviously 3x my initial budget and that is obviously nearing top of the range. I can not think of any logical reason as to why I would see that and think yeah im going to buy it. I understand that is necessary for some people but for a beginner it is totally surplus to requirements and is way out of my price range even for their basic models. Yes it is also not the only manufacturer, there are other 'mid-tier' brands such as leofoto and feisol, but again, they can still cost ~£250 which is still a big chunk of money for most people.
This is not a post directed just at you but venting frustration in general, so my apologies if it comes across that way. I got told to consider a 600 euro feisol at the bare minimum, which is even better than the tripod this guy had himself. I cant understand the thought process behind telling somebody to do that as the bare minimum.
Do you have genuine reason to tell me not to get a globetrotter for example? From the forums they are pretty well regarded as an affordable entry into travel tripods, which is exactly what im looking for. I did further research last night and some people seemed to think they were rather unstable for long exposures (~30s), which makes sense as it is a basic travel tripod made of aluminium... My thought process now is maybe get something equivalent to a 190xprob (but with higher max load rating and a few other bits) mainly suited for local use or single day hikes, and if i like it to purchase something that will do the other stuff i want well in terms of a travel pod, and have two that will do everything I want.
I have also found a few decent looking sirui models which seem to do everything I want but are at the top of my budget range. Will I want to upgrade them in the future? Maybe... Probably. But for now that is fine, if it does all I want to a reasonable degree right now then thats what I will choose.
As Glynn said, " Whatever you choose, just enjoy your photography. " I cant do that without a tripod, and I cant have a tripod if I cant afford it. There will always be something better and I am willing to bet most people have multiple tripods for different uses.
Thanks guys, I think these look pretty decent for what they are, but I cant seem to find much info at all on them apart from the mid+ level options... Do you reckon its worth just skipping them since I cant find much online backing for the models avaliable to me? (Models T-1004, M-1004 and ET-2004). I keep finding one and liking it then reading a few comments that make want to pick something else and start running in circles!
