The combination of low price and 4+ star reviews here seemed too good to pass up, so I purchased this tripod over all other options. My first impression of the tripod was positive, it is compact and lightweight. It is sturdy with the center column retracted. With the center column extended though, there is very noticeable vibration seen in long exposure pictures when used with a finger-depressed shutter, even with a 10 second timer delay. If you extend the center column, use a cable release or remote, and be sure you have non-windy conditions. The Arca Swiss plate mechanism is secure, I have carried the tripod with my camera attached to the head on day hikes with no problem. The ball head operation is smooth and firm. However, the biggest problem with this tripod is the build quality of its legs. After only 2 days of outdoor hiking, two of the legs jammed up at the thinnest sections and wouldn't slide back in. The tripod was always handled with care, always upright and never placed horizontally on the ground outdoors. It took some back and forth twisting action to finally coax the legs back in. They extended smoothly, but once again, same problem getting them back in. Then, the same problem showed up in the next, thicker section of one of the same legs. Eventually, a broken piece of plastic gasket or bushing popped out from one of the legs at the telescope mechanism and now this leg is permanently stuck in its extended position. Bottom line, while the tripod is cheap and feels smooth and sturdy at first, the lack of durability and quality becomes very apparent with a few days of use. In summary, I do not recommend this tripod. For all but very light indoor users, you will definitely be better off paying some more and buying a better quality tripod, as I have now learnt.

I have used it for about 6 weeks lightly in standard conditions. Right off the bat you could tell this wasn't top quality however it seemed to be well built for the cost and thats all one can ask for really. However just the other day one of the legs became stuck in the open position. Immediately I noticed a plastic piece laying on the floor that had broken off the tripod from inside one of the tightening rings used to expand or retract the legs. Its cheap plastic that would have broken down at some point but mine broke down earlier, either by bad luck(lemon), or some other reason. Being handy I will attend to somehow fix this issue but am dissatisfied with my purchase and always regret not just being patient and saving for better quality. If you can, and thats a big if, save for a higher end more reputable tripod do so. There is a reason these are priced so much lower.

One leg of the tripod came off while adjusting the height before a photoshoot. The reason was that the legs are attached to each other with flimsy black plastic thingies (inside each telescopic leg) which are easy to lose. I couldn't figure out where it fell off, and once that is gone,it bcomes impossible to connect the legs. $155 gone down in drain :(. Why would they make a professional product in so unbelievably poor design? beats me. Attaching a photo so other people can realize what the "black plastic thingy" looks like - you need two of them for one detachable leg. I lost one - similar to the one in the photo.

Before I say anything else, I'll say that since figuring everything out this tripod has been really great! If everything was perfect right out of the box, I'd definitely give it a 5-star rating.

When I received this tripod, one of the legs was not installed/attached properly - the bottom three sections (all attached to each other) fell off from the top section the minute that I opened up the legs. This is the reason that I can't give 5 stars. It turned out that a piece for the inside of the leg where the twist-lock is was missing. However, there was an extra one inside the box, and I was able to put it in. It was a huge debacle doing this, since at first I put it in wrong and had to unscrew the entire leg from the tripod completely and then use small paper clips to get it out (it's hard to explain exactly what I did, but it doesn't really matter anyway - the point is that it was difficult). But it got even worse after that. After I finally figured out the correct way that it fits in, I thought that I'd lost one of the tiny extremely thin spacers used in attaching the leg to the rest of the tripod. I couldn't find it anywhere, so I actually went to a hardware place to see if I could buy a replacement spacer, but the store didn't have anything thin enough. So, after I got back I tried to just screw it all back together with just three spacers instead of four. Well, it turns out that I might not have actually lost a spacer in the first place - maybe there were only three in the first place - since everything fit very snugly. I won't remove extra any stars for all of that, since it was mostly my fault; I'm only taking the one star off for it not being properly put together out of the box.

Now that all that was sorted out, I could finally test it out. Well, it works great! The price is really good for it being carbon fiber. I love the bright orange color. The head rotates smoothly and not too quickly, and the spirit levels are very helpful. The legs have some resistance when opening and closing, which I think is actually a good thing (I'd think that it makes the tripod sturdier). I like that there are only four leg sections, since it helps make the tripod sturdier. The twist-locks are pretty good, but they could maybe be a little better, since they feel sort of cheap and are very plasticky (but I won't take any stars off for that) - they do the job, though. The locking mechanism at the top of the legs is very good and feels strong. It's very light, and I also like the ability to turn it into a monopod. It folds down into a very small and compact form, which is quite convenient and is an awesome feature considering how tall the tripod is when opened all the way up. I only have one additional gripe, and that's that there's a slight paint on one of the twist-locks, with some of the black rubber getting onto the orange part (but that's also not worthy of a rating decrease).

So, overall, I really love this tripod! I've had it for several months now, and though I haven't used it a lot, it's served me well when I have used it. I'm really glad that I made this purchase!

So here's the scoop. I was shopping for a good travel tripod when I saw this lightning deal on cyber monday. this thing had all the features I was looking for on the itesm i already had on my wish list (and more). I thought, "wow, this is the one i've been waiting for". The carbon fiber legs are great... it's really stable; especially when weighted down. and the quick release has a nice safety pin to keep the camera from falling down. I didnt have any issues like some of the more common ones like making the legs so loose they fall off. I know how friction tigteners work and I know better than to keep unscrewing it until it comes apart. It's not as good as clamps because with clamps you can visually see when it's tight; you have to feel these each time you set it up. But overall it was a great product, but for one thing...

The big deal breaker for me was the fluid head (i'm likly going to return it because of this.)

The fluid head works great under controlled environmental conditions (like indoors), but it does not survive changes well. I just got back from a trip out west (western united states - Grand canyon and surrounding desert and canyoon areas [excellent vistas and spectacular photo opportunities]) and it worked great at first, but the daily changes in altitude, temperature, barametric pressure, etc... were just too much for it. it started to leak fluid on the third day. it still kind of worked afterwards, but never as good as when it was new. it wasnt smooth anymore and kind of felt like a friction swivel there after. I know how fluid heads work and I made sure to keep the horizontal axis loose while traveling so as to give it some room to expand, but I think the issue is that its a fixed fluid pressure inside the head and you cant adjust it directly. With other fluid heads you would be able to release pressure and allow for expansion, but not with this one. The fliud motion was a big selling point for me. I can get another tripod with the clamps for a bit less than this and get a better fluid head for it separrately. I really need a travel tripod to survive a diverse range of travel. I have many other trips planned this comming year in much more rapidly changing conditions. the trip west was a test for this to see if it could meet my needs. I really like all the features this thing came with but in the end I'll settle for less features and more robustness on the basics.