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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott and as a photographer and a reviewer, obviously I use tripods a lot as a part of what I do
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and as of right before this review I did a quick count and discovered that I have some
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eight different tripods. It might be time to sell one or two of them but anyway for years my primary
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tripod has been one from Vanguard. I replaced a Manfrotto with this. I wanted to try something with
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a pistol grip but I've liked it a lot. However there are some limitations for different things
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that I do and part of it comes down to the fact that this particular tripod is a aluminum and I
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know that when you're pricing out tripods, it can often be a pretty vast difference between
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an aluminum tripod and a carbon fiber tripod. And in some cases, aluminum may be just fine
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for you. What I was finding, however, is that this particular package, it's not all that
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compact when it's folded down. And it was fairly heavy. The tripod alone is over five
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and a half pounds or right around five and a half pounds. And so I decided that I wanted
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to try a carbon fiber tripod. Now, there's a reason why I didn't initially purchase a carbon
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fiber tripod, and that is that they are expensive. But I decided that I wanted to give one a try
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and so that I could compare. So first off, the reason, one of the things that I really like about
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the tripod I'm about to show you is that even in its bag, you know, ready for travel, a padded bag
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It takes up less space. It's much more compact than what the Vanguard is with the tripod alone
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And on top of that, if we pull this baby out, we find that the tripod itself, of course, is much more compact
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And it is considerably smaller. In fact, it is 22.4 inches as compared to 26 inches when it's fully retracted
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But at the same time, because this is a four-section tripod, it actually extends out considerably further
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The maximum height is around 63 inches on the Vanguard here. Whereas the tripod I'm reviewing today, this Oban CC2481L tripod, it actually, because it's a four-section
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it will extend out to a greater height than that which the Vanguard will
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And on top of that, let's just take a quick visual comparison here
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And so, there's a total of three sections here on the Vanguard
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So, it's considerably heavier. We already determined that And you can really feel the difference when you just feeling the heft of them But as you can see the base height is considerably different here
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And if we extend up these center columns on both of them, we find that the overall height extends to a much higher place
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But here's another notable difference. If I kind of try to rock here at the top of this, you'll see that it's quite easy to tip this
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On top of this, the nature of aluminum is that vibration comes through much more easily
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Now, if I try to tip this Oban, you'll find that it's a much more stable platform by comparison than these two
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And so as a result, I just have a greater sense of security, and it's reflected in the payload that it can support
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Although this is lighter and more compact when folded up, this can support a payload of around 17 pounds
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whereas this Oban tripod can support a payload of 26 pounds, and so a pretty significant difference
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And so the combination here is it's quite different. Now, there are a few other things that I want to highlight
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Both all of these sections can be independently tightened, so you can control the tension via an Allen hex key that is included with it
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Now, this is a lateral tripod, which means that when you extend that center column all the way through
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You can actually then lock it into place and you can set up your camera with it out here
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which is great for like macro work. And I also will often do video work where I've got a camera that is out, say, over a
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light tent and it's shooting down. Now, one challenge that I have when I'm shooting in the light tent is that your typical best
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position is to be out over an actual leg and that way you're providing stability
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Now here if I'm out over like this, it is possible with a heavy camera combination for it to tip forward
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And so there's a few ways to solve that. One of the simplest is that there's an accessory that Oban makes
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And they just call it a tripod hammock. And basically all it is is it quickly attaches to the legs via Velcro
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And it will allow you to then you can add in whatever weight happens to be around
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If you've got rocks, you can put your camera bag. In case, why reinvent the wheel
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I'm going to put weight in there. And so as a result, as you can see, now I have a very, very stable platform for that
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And so that is an accessory that I recommend if you find yourself in situations like that
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Now, as far as the accessories go, it does come with a few things. It comes with the reducer bushing
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And so you can put, you know, compatible with a number of different heads
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It comes with a carry strap for the actual tripod itself. Now, in the bag, there is a carry strap for the bag itself
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You're going to carry it that way. Or you also have an option It got a hook here where you can just clip onto that and then you attach on via velcro on the other end and so you can throw the tripod over your shoulder it nice and padded
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through here it's got a zipper compartment where you can store you know memory cards or
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keys or whatever and to put that in there it also comes with a tripod hanger just a little
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attachment that you can screw on even onto the quick release plate and that way you can hang
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the tripod from a ceiling or a wall to take up less room. So as far as the functionality of it
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I mean, it does a lot of things really well. Of course, the center column can be reversed if you
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want to shoot low to the ground. You know, it's got the versatility of being able to adjust
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the legs into different positions, which is pretty standard. And one thing I will note on that is that
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many tripods that I've used are similar to this Vanguard and that there is a button that you
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depress. So you kind of take it past that resistant point and then you can adjust it up to various
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positions, you know, and it'll kind of click into those. And frankly, I actually prefer that to
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what's here. Here you actually pull this section out and allows you to, you know, very smoothly
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take things up, but I don't necessarily feel like it does anything better. You just, you know
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at different points you can, you know, add tension back in. And, and so, you know, it works
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But I don't find that it's any better process than what I would just the normal
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And so I don't know why that they made that change. But they did
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Beyond that, it has got bubble spirit levels on the base here itself
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And then you can also find that on the ball head that is included
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And this does come in a kit. And so this comes with the BC-126
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Now BC is different from the BE head in that it has an additional little tension knob here
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that allows you to further control the amount of tension that you're putting on the actual ball head
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I like the ball head here in a lot of ways. It's lightweight, but at the same time it's really high-grade aluminum, so it only weighs about a pound
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But it gives you a lot of versatility in where you can position the head itself
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It has a separate knob for doing panorama. It allows you to rotate around that base, and so that's also certainly nice
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Another thing I like here is that you can actually, if I tighten this down
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you can also adjust in to where the whole center column can rotate, which isn't the case in all tripods, certainly not in this one
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And so, again, just a little bit more versatility. There are two other spirit bubble levels in this
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There is one here on the top and then one also on the side on the adjustment knob
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Now speaking of that adjustment, this is Arca Swiss compatible, which of course is really
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important because it means that there a lot of new lenses that I testing coming out that have for example a tripod foot that is Arca Swiss compatible you can skip the tripod or the quick release plate just put it
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right on there and tighten it down or a peak design for example I've got their Capture Pro
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and some other products that are designed being also Arca Swiss compatible just throw them on the
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tripod this quick release plate though is kind of a big deal to me and that that was one of the
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areas I was dissatisfied. The quick release plate on my Vanguard, it had two issues. One of those is
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that it is not a tool-less tension. And so you'll note that I've got dangling on here. I actually
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carried a washer that I could use to tighten that down because very rarely, although it's slotted
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I very rarely am carrying change. And so I just kept something there that I could tighten it in
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the field. But kind of a bigger issue is that it has grip surfaces only on the two sides of the
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plate. So if you have a heavy combination, which my kind of combination I had issues with was using
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the Tamarin 15-30mm f2.8, and then I would add on an expensive and heavy aftermarket filter system
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I use the Photodiox Pro Wonderpana system. So you've got a big lens, you've got a heavy adapter
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and then you've got these big glass filters on there. And what I would find is that when I had
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it adjusted like this and in this position that even though I could lock, it wasn't with the
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problem structurally here. Everything would lock down securely, but because there wasn't enough
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grip surface, the camera would begin to drift down itself no matter how much I tightened it
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from the bottom. That's a problem. Fortunately, there are grip surfaces, actually six different
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grip surfaces that literally go all around the face of this. As a result, using that same
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combination I have had zero issues I also like the fact that you know this is a tool-less design
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you can just flip this little ring up and you can finger tighten and get things plenty tight so
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overall things are just working well here for me and I am very happy with the tripod itself other
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than that you know kind of quirk right there the other thing of course is price and this baby is
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going to set you back around 600 bucks at bnh photo and so that makes it expensive but of course
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if you have priced out professional grade carbon fiber tripods that support this kind of payload
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and go up to this kind of height and offer this kind of stability they're expensive and so this
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is actually cheaper than a number of competitors that have the exact same spec list and so if you
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would like to check one out for yourself, you can find a buying link in the description down below
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