I was trained as a commercial photographer but finished up for many years a press photographer but in both jobs, a good quality tripod was an essential part of my working life. This new tripod from Zomei is available for a very reasonable Amazon pri…
I was trained as a commercial photographer but finished up for many years a press photographer but in both jobs, a good quality tripod was an essential part of my working life. This new tripod from Zomei is available for a very reasonable Amazon price of £66.99 and may meet the needs of most serious photographers.
It arrived in a smaller box than I was expecting due to the tripod retracting to just eighteen inches. Inside the box along with the tripod was a carry bag, soft bag for the head, Allen key, screw mount, product catalogue. The build quality of all seems fine and I was particularly pleased to see that a decent quality padded carry bag was included. The User Guide is large and easy to read and I include a scan of it in my unboxing video.
The four-stage leg extensions are secured by twist locks rather than the quick release keys favoured for press work. They work fine and are good and stable in use but are slightly slower to set up than the quick release type. Also, users of large format or heavy cameras will find that fewer leg extensions will make the tripod more stable at full height but I found this one to be fine at full extension with a DSLR mounted and better still with just a smartphone on top. One reason the tripod folds so small is that it sort of folds back on itself for storage as my video shows. This also allows for the legs to be splayed out to almost any position which can be useful when in a confined space. One leg can even be detached and used separately as a monopod!
The tripod comes supplied with a 360-degree ball mounted head with three lock screws to secure it to any angle. It has a quick release plate which can be mounted to a camera to allow for speedy swapping over of cameras without disturbing the tripod mount positioning. The head a single central bubble type spirit level for positioning rather than separate levels for each plane. The head itself can be easily unscrewed from the tripod should a video head need to be used. With t..
