Thinking of travelling with your camera gear?

Wondering what a good travel tripod would be?

Going away for holidays is fun and as a photographer, it's even more fun when you know you're gonna be able to get away and take some fantastic photos. However, it can sometimes be a little bit of a challenge to take all of your equipment with you. As a landscape photographer, I like to use a tripod so I've gone through the process of trying to work out what is the best travel-friendly options for me. In this article, I will share with you what I look for and what I do and don't like about these travel tripods for Landscape Photography.

If you've been following me for a while you know that I was trying to find a lighter setup by doing things like buying a mirrorless camera, however, but I really do love shooting with my DSLR. This means that if I'm going to set up my DSLR, I also need to make sure I have a very decent tripod.

The first tripod that I got was the Benro Travel Angel.

This tripod packs up extremely small, is compact and comes in a small bag for easy travel. It actually isn't very expensive and is made out of carbon fibre. It also extends to a good height; I've never run into issues with it not going high enough. One of the challenges with this tripod is that it is a little bit too lightweight.

When the tripod folds out and the centre pole is down, it works really well. Once you get the last peg sections of the legs out however it does become a little flimsy. Since it is made out of carbon fibre, it doesn't bend but it's just not as solid as I would like it to be. I feel another downside to this tripod is the centre pole. I'm not a fan of centre poles on tripods as I think they create a weakness as well as prevent you from getting down low to the ground. So with this tripod, you can extend the legs right out but you can't go very low as the pole gets in the way.

You can turn it upside down by unscrewing a piece at the bottom, putting it in the other way and from there you can hang your camera upside down. I've done this before for things like macro photography but it can sometimes be a bit of a challenge. The B00 ball head is also lightweight and does not cope extremely well with DSLR but it does do well with mirrorless cameras. So if you are using a mirrorless camera then this tripod would be a great option.

The next tripod I checked out was also a Benro since they do make good quality equipment. This one is a Travel Flat tripod which is packed flatly and is not too long when folded making it very convenient to pack at the bottom of your suitcase.

The ingenious design allows it to pack up flatly but easily pop up the legs and extend into a very tall tripod. I like it because it is very similar to my Really Right tripod as it doesn't have the centre pole piece making it nice and sturdy. This one has the B2 ball head which doesn't 100% hold up the weight of my DSLR when it has a big lens, like 14-22mm, on it but it does well enough. The ball head is similar to the one on my other tripod which has friction, spinning, and ball adjustments. It also has a mechanism for locking in the plate and the carbon fibre makes it a lightweight piece of equipment. The bag it comes in is comfortable making it easy to carry around if you have to carry it separately from your other equipment. I was thinking of upgrading the ball head but I decided not to as it does still work quite well.

So if you're looking for a travel tripod, Benro has some good options for you. I do think Benro is underrated, I've had both of these tripods for years and they've been on many jaunts into the mud, sea, salt, sand, and wind and are still going strong. As a quick disclaimer I wasn't paid to say nice things about these tripods, this is just my honest opinion; as I said the Benro ball heads don't have the same quality as my Really Right tripod but of course are also nowhere near the price. Travelling with your camera gear doesn't mean that you can't take a good sturdy tripod with you as either of these tripods are fantastic options.