Peak Design is back at it again. This time, however, their crowdfunding campaign doesn't involve a clever clip system or a new camera bag—it's a tripod. The Peak Design Travel Tripod has been eleven years in the making, according to Peak Design CEO Peter Dering.
Tired of conventional tripod designs, Dering set out to rethink the tripod from the ground up, but following through on the dream would prove far more difficult than he imagined.
The goal of the Travel Tripod, which will come in both aluminum and carbon fiber variations, was to design a tripod that removed all of the empty, negative space found in conventional tripod designs, and they managed to achieve just that. DPReview was sent a pre-production sample to take product photos of for this article and as you can see in the images, not a single bit of space was wasted throughout the tripod's design.
The legs are contoured to the triangular center column, the cams to unlock the legs are stacked and can all be opened at once, and the cleverly thought out ballhead fits inside the contours of the legs to fold up into a unit that's no larger in diameter than a Nalgene water bottle and shorter than two Nalgenes stacked on top of one another. The aluminum and carbon fiber versions weigh 1554g (3. 43lbs) and 1210g (2. 67lbs), respectively. When packed, the tripod measures just 6. 35cm (2. 5in) in diameter and 39. 37cm (15. 5in).
The Peak Design tripod folded up next to a folded up Manfrotto 190XB with a trigger-style ballhead.
The head itself, which can support up to 9. 1kg (20lbs) and reach a maximum height of 152. 4cm (60in) with the legs and center column completely extended, uses a rotating dial around the edge to loosen and lock the head in position. Cameras are mounted onto the head using Peak Design's Capture Clip mount and snap into place with a quick latch that's secure on its own, but can also be locked using a secondary rotating dial.
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In addition to the tripod, the kit includes a Capture Camera Clip and dedicated carrying case that has a little pocket with an included hex key for tightening and loosening various elements of the tripod.
For a full run-down of the tripod and its specs, head on over to out our more thorough hands-on and to crowdfund the tripod, visit the Kickstarter campaign. A pledge of $289 will get you the aluminum version and a pledge of $479 will get you the carbon fiber version. The first tripods are expected to ship December 2019.
Disclaimer: Remember to do your research with any crowdfunding project. DPReview does its best to share only the projects that look legitimate and come from reliable creators, but as with any crowdfunded campaign, there's always the risk of the product or service never coming to fruition.
. dpreview.com2019-5-21 17:00
