3 replies to this topic

[OTRTexan]

Yesterday I stopped at a rest area next to a river in Montana just after sunrise hoping to find something interesting to shoot. As luck would have it, a bald eagle was perched in a pine tree overlooking the river. The perfect opportunity to really put my current tripod to the test. It failed miserably. Zoomed in on live view to manually focus since it was a good distance away, no wind, and it would drift just sitting there. Now to be fair to the tripod, it's not built for that much weight (D810 and Tamron 150-600).

So I've really been researching tripods. Yes, a Really Right Stuff or Gitzo would be awesome and still may be where I go. However, I've been looking at the Induro CT314. It's a Chinese made Gitzo knockoff for about half the price. I have yet to find a single bad review of one. At first I really disliked that according to the B&H spec sheet, the min height was 21.5" as opposed to 6" or 4" on gitzo or rrs respectively. But I realized that the 21" is the minimum folded length, not operating height. All three come with a 5 yr warranty. The Induro comes with a case, the other two charge 80-130$ for theirs. The Induro also has leg wraps pretty installed.

I would pair it with either a Wimberley gimbal or a RRS ball head, still on the fence here... gimbal vs ball.

Has anyone heard of any issues with Induro?

[Nikonite]

I've had 3 SLIK tripods and highly recommend them. Perhaps the biggest endorsement is that Survivorman uses them too. I just happened to notice that the other night when checking out Survivorman:Bigfoot. 

[Merco_61]

I have never heard of trouble with legs from either Induro, Feisol or Benro. They seem to do their job without too many quirks. The Chinese heads are another matter, good samples just work but there are lots of lemons that pass inspection and reach the consumer.

[OTRTexan]

That's about what I've found in my research Merco. My thinking is, save 5-600$ on legs, and spend what I saved on a good ball or gimbal head.

I think to make the ball vs gimbal decision, I'm going to try to get to a shop that carries both to try. My concern with a gimbal head is set up time.