My most recent photography purchase is the excellent Manfrotto 190 XPROB tripod which came with the Manfrotto 486RC2 Ball Head. I have just received the tripod so I haven’t had an extensive play with it but what I have used I am extremely happy with.

I have had a few tripods so far and all of them(with the exception of the gorillapod, which is also excellent :-)) are, to put it crudely, shit. Firstly I should mention what makes the other tripods crap and lambaste them before I offer the benefits of the Manfrotto.

The previous tripods that i have owed have all been bought from Jessops, which is a UK based photography shop. Normally buying from them is great because it is affordable but some things create a false economy if you end up buying based primarily on price. Firstly the tripods are normally of an inferior quality, they may be quite lite in weight but they are flimsily made and are usually bulky. If they are not bulky then they usually turn out to be quite unsteady, not very good for something that is supposed to eliminate camera shake.

The main area that annoys me about these tripods is the head. They normally have a very inferior, plastic head that is not very flexible in its design. They are also not interchangeable meaning you cannot upgrade in the future.

Whats so good about the Manfrotto

Manfrotto have a very good name in the tripod arena and they do make sturdy, if a bit pricy tripods. The 190 xprob is a relatively small tripod that enables you to carry it around when traveling. At its smallest it closes down to 57cm, which is small enough to fit onto a backpack or to carry around in your hand. The good thing is that it extends to 146cm with the centre column fully extended, with the ball head on top, this is just above my eye level which is perfect.

The selling point of the xprob model is that it is quick and simple to have the centre column to go into a horizontal position. This is a snap and manfrotto have gone out of their way to make this easy. Simply push in the button and the column swings from vertical to horizontal extending your options.

You can also use the horizontal centre column to great effect as the tripod legs extend to enable you to put the tripod almost flat on the ground hand for macro work or simply to sit on top of a wall or any other configuration you can think of.

The ball head makes it easy, I never used to be a fan of ball heads as they are a little more difficult to get level. After playing with one for a while though I have really got to like them, they enable you to position your camera in any way imaginable and this definitely comes into play when you change around the configuration of the tripod.

I have used this tripod a couple of times so far and I love it, it is sturdy, configurable and made of good stuff. Keep a look out for some tripod enabled photos to come. Below is a photo of Melbourne at dusk taken with my first use of this tripod, I’m pretty happy.

Melbourne Southbank taken from under one of the bridges across the Yarra river.