Peak Design’s newest product is taking it into an entirely new class. It’s called the Travel Tripod, and it is able to effortlessly mild a flame under the dormant tripod enterprise. It’s the primary principal rethinking of the traditional 3-legged digital camera support machine in lots of years, presenting an ultra-compact design that also offers balance worthy of large DSLRs.
If you’re a photographer, there’s a truthful hazard you’ve heard of Peak Design. The agency’s first product, the Capture digital camera clip system, released on Kickstarter in 2011 and earned a groovy $360,000. The product, which allow photographers connect a digital camera to a belt or backpack strap, presented a simple option to a not unusual hassle, and the campaign blew past expectancies. Then lightning struck two times. Then again, and once more, and once more…
By the time of its 8th Kickstarter marketing campaign in July 2018, which released a line of tour luggage and accessories, Peak Design changed into a household name among more than just photographers. That marketing campaign raised over $5 million from extra than 13,000 backers.
The organisation now promises hundreds of products each day to clients around the world. Peak Design isn’t just a Kickstarter achievement story — it’s a poster infant for the American dream.
It’s no wonder, then, that Peak Design returned to Kickstarter to release the Travel Tripod. Billed as a “ground-up reexamination of camera tripod layout,” it claims to be the most volumetrically green tripod ever made which could still assist full-size cameras and lenses.
But what ought to possibly be so interesting approximately a tripod? Well, more than you could recognize. I have spent a short time with a preproduction version of the Travel Tripod, and whilst a few things can also change among now and the final model, I am already very inspired with it. It is thinner, quicker to installation, and plenty less difficult to carry (either in a bag or by using hand) than my MeFoto BackPacker, which has served as my number one take-everywhere tripod for years. That that is Peak Design’s first tripod makes it all the extra astonishing.
The Travel Tripod’s origins can be traced returned to Peak Design CEO and founder Peter Dering’s frustration with the lack of a great lightweight tripod that didn’t take in an excessive amount of space in a bag. While innovations like reversible legs and carbon fiber had executed their element to make tripods smaller and lighter, they all nevertheless had one big hassle: Four cylindrical tubes (3 legs, one middle column) definitely do no longer crumble in an green manner. No remember the way you try to shove them collectively, there’s too much unused bad area left over.
Peak Design solved this hassle in the most apparent way feasible: By now not making the tubes round. The Travel Tripod has a roughly triangular middle column with a completely narrow diameter; the legs are molded to fit almost flush against it while closed. Not most effective does this save space, however it makes the tripod tons greater secure to keep in your hand.
Another component Peak Design did turned into take away all the knobs that typically jut out from a tripod head, opting alternatively for a unmarried locking dial that encircles the mounting plate and tightens or loosens the head onto the ball joint. Some photographers may additionally locate the shortage of an independent pan control to be a small trouble, but Peak Design’s technique has wiped clean up the ball head considerably; when it comes to sliding the Travel Tripod into a tripod collar on a backpack, there are not any difficult factors to seize on the fabric or straps.
There is one knob that stays, that’s used to elevate or decrease the middle column, but it can retract to lie nearly flush with the legs when the tripod is collapsed.
The quick launch mount is compatible with famous Arca Swiss plates as well as the Peak Design Capture plate, so that you can unclip your digital camera from your backpack and snap it into the tripod without converting plates. The head can also be absolutely removed from the middle column and mounted without delay to the legs for “low boy” operation. Alternately, the middle column can clearly be inverted for low-attitude or downward-dealing with photographs. Spread width is controlled by way of spring-loaded locks at the pinnacle of the legs.
But the good innovation — if I do giggle at myself slightly for pronouncing this — is the popular phone mount that’s built into the middle column. At the base of the column you’ll discover a counterweight hook; many tripods have these, however Peak Design’s is extraordinary. Pull down on a spring-loaded collar across the hook and you could rotate it and pa it out of region. You’ll locate it’s connected to a magnet, which attracts what appears to be a simple black bar a couple inches long out of the middle column. This bar unfolds into a smartphone clamp that clips at once onto the tripod head.
