What to look for in a tripod

[As_west_as_it_gets]

I recently got my first 85mm spotter and quickly realized that my Vanguard espod tripod is not cutting the mustard. The advertised specs on that Vanguard says it can hold up to 7 pounds. When looking for a new tripod online, how can I tell if a tripod will hold the 85 without shaking all over the place?


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[SW hunter]

When tripod shopping a few years ago I got some good advice while researching. You’re not going to find a great tripod in a sporting goods store. You’re going to find a better tripod looking for photography type tripods. I found a Manfrotto that worked great in a camera shop. Heads are similar but I found the Outdoorsman head was great quality. A cheap tripod and head can limit a good spotting scope. A good tripod and head can make the absolute most of a cheaper quality spotting scope.

 

[Fedster]

What to look for is simple: steady for the weight it has to support. If you spend 3K on optics and the tripod is flimsy you just downgraded your optics to 500 bucks -- the vibrations the tripod transmits do that. To give you an idea, for a 85mm spotter I'd go for something like a sirui 3213X (I use it for a 80mm spotter), and not even bother to use the center column if you can avoid it. I do understand that in practice what I am saying sounds like 'forget lightweight and compact, get something big, heavy and difficult to pack', which is not what people want to hear, but the 3K -> 500 bucks decrease in optics performance is no joke. A tripod with a 3 sections leg will always be better for a 85mm spotter than a more compact 4 sections leg. A heavier tripod will also do better. The only place where I could see a way of making stuff lighter is to get a ball head (because they are really strong for the weight they can take), which can be 1/2 the weight of a fluid head. You will immediately get in the tradeoff lighter-easier to carry/less stable - more vibrations. In theory you can hang stuff from the bottom of a tripod and increase the stability, but then again, that works best if you can hang a lot of weight (which you might need to find on location, unless you like to pack it especially) and hang it so it increases stability without adding oscillations -- doing it well requires finesse. If you know how to do that well, you know you will find decent weight on location etc, you might go for a lighter rig. I personally would not unless I had *years* of experience in weighting down a tripod -- it does not take a lot to run a hunt.

If you know you will do all your spotting *sitting down* then you can go for something smaller, because you will just use the first segment of the legs (give or take), which is the sturdiest. I would never make that assumption for myself.

I understand none of the above is stuff people like to hear. I apologise.