I ordered from ReallyBigCameras.com. I got outstanding service:
asked questions Tuesday, ordered Wednesday, arrived Friday.
Atop the legs, I mounted a Kirk BH-3 head I already owned. This works well because that head is small enough that the legs can fold up over the head - cool feature.
The tripod seems to be well made. The fit & finished looks great out of the box. Let me kick it around in the field for a summer and we'll see.
Weight. Oh my! Can a tripod this light do the job? My usual support is a Gitzo 320 with a Kirk short (non-adjustable) column and an Arca-Swiss B1. I weighed the two rigs on the bathroom scale and the new set-up is about 1/3 the weight.
High & low. Extra height is nice for a tripod. The Feisol is shorter than my old Gitzo. I expect I will miss that height a lot. On the other hand, I shoot a lot of macro stuff where I want to get as low as possible. The Feisol goes lower than the Gitzo. This is because of the 180 degree swing of the Feisol legs. You can lay the tripod as flat as a pancake. The minimum height is determined by your head, not the tripod legs.
Vibration. The real test will be using it, but I mounted a 300 mm lens on the two tripods and did the tap-test: look through the view finder, tap the lens and see what you see. It looks to me like the Feisol sort of dampens the tap, but I see things on a longer time scale than my camera does. I won't really know until I expose a few hundred frames.
Pete, a year ago I sold my Gitzo GT 3540LS and ordered a Feisol 3472 and have never looked back. At almost $700 shipped, the Gitzo is a fine piece of engineering and execution. Fit and finish is as good as it gets. But trying to use it with my 500mm lens proved a bit frustrating. I had heard about the soon-to-be released Feisol, but needed something sooner. The day that the 3472 became available, I ordered it, packed up the Gitzo, put it on ebay and sold it for almost what I paid for it. Got the introductory promotion on the Feisol that included carrying bag, foam covers, leveling head (so it works like a Gitzo LSV) and metal spikes for the ends of the legs - all for $535 shipped directly from Feisol.
In the past year I have been all over the Hudson Valley in NY photographing bald eagles, at sporting events, and other outdoor venues and have never been disappointed. 97% of my shots are vibration free.
The finish in all likelihood will get scratches, especially the lower leg, but those are strictly cosmetic. Otherwise, it is very well made.
One concern I had with the Gitzo was the mechanism to hold the top plate in the ring. They used a single bolt to cinch around the plate and friction to hold it in place. Though I had not heard of any incidents, I could just see myself carrying the tripod with camera and lens mounted, over my shoulder as I often do, and the whole thing falling off the top of the pod. It just didn't seem too secure.
The Feisol uses a different attachment which includes a very tight fit between the plate and the ring, and a machined V groove that accepts 3 hardened V pointed set screws around the ring. the fit is so tight and the quality of the machine is such that with only one screw installed and tight that plate does not budge.
Shortly after I ordered my Feisol, Gitzo released the 3541, which had a re-engineered top plate fastening system. Hmm . . .
Previously I did not think it was possible to match Gitzo's weight to stiffness performance. IMHO, Feisol clearly matches and seems to exceed Gitzo. If you factor in the price, Gitzo isn't even close. For the Gitzo owners out there, don't get me wrong - Gitzo remains the choice for the professional and advanced amateur - there is no better-made tripod on the planet. However, for those of us that need performance and don't have a garage-full of gold bullion, the Feisol offers a no-compromise (at least as far as shooting performance is concerned) alternative. The Feisol 3342 is just a smaller, 2.27lb version of the 3472, so I am sure that you will get great use out of it. Enjoy!
I've been using a Feisol CT-3442 and a PhotoClam ballhead (a Markins 'clone') purchased from Really Big Cameras for about a year now in a variety of conditions, and it's performed superbly at half the price of the similar Gitzo/Markins setup, yet with exactly the same performance and quality.
As Steve noted, the rubber feet on the Feisol tripods don't stay on as well as I would like. This is a very minor deal, and a small dab of Elmer's white glue alleviates the problem while still allowing them to be removed if one wants to use spiked feet in the future.
Kerry from RBC will send you replacement rubber feet at no charge anytime you need 'em.
Posted by Darren Huski on September 29, 2009 at 8:23 PM
Feisols are a really good tripod at a good buy. A buddy bought a first gen one a few years back and it has performed very well as a lightweight hiking pod. Then the large format crowd started using them as travel pods (was a good review in View Camera). So I decided to get a 3401 as a compliment to the bigger Gitzo 1325.
Perfect as a hiking or airline travel pod. It will hold my Arca-Swiss 4x5 and is good with my dslr and 70-200 easy.
Now I think the Gitzo is a much better leg set-and it should be for the huge price difference. But for a hiking tripod for a digital kit and lenses upto 70-200 I think the small Feisols are the ticket.
Only thing to watch for is the rubber feet pop off. I put a dab of Elmers gule on them to help hold them on.
I scratched the legs something fierce on the rocky shores or Lake Superior, but it is purely cosmetic.
The leg locks have been easier to work with than I expected. I think the carbon fiber reinforced polymer is just more amenable to that type of lock than the aluminum tubes I'm used to. The Feisol legs have been easy to lock and always easy to unlock. This is much different that my Gitzo legs, which slip when I don't want them to and develop a death grip when it is time to fold up. In the next couple months, I should have the opportunity to see what happens to the Feisol in freezing weather, but so far, so good.
I now understand why it is nice that the legs can fold up, way up ~180 degrees right over a small ball head. What a great feature for a travel tripod. It makes a smaller package and affords some protection for your expensive ball head. My whole support system fits right in the manufacturers bag.
It is a small thing, but I appreciate that the tripod came with a decent case (with a handy side pocket), a few essential tripod adjustment tools.
Maybe I just have a Gitzo hangover, but if I were to do it again, I'd get the next larger size up from the one I have. The 3342 I bought is much lighter than my standby Gitzo 320. It is so much lighter that I worry a little about walking too far away from the tripod when there is a camera on top.
Discussion
6 repliesI ordered from ReallyBigCameras.com. I got outstanding service:
asked questions Tuesday, ordered Wednesday, arrived Friday.
Atop the legs, I mounted a Kirk BH-3 head I already owned. This works well because that head is small enough that the legs can fold up over the head - cool feature.
The tripod seems to be well made. The fit & finished looks great out of the box. Let me kick it around in the field for a summer and we'll see.
Weight. Oh my! Can a tripod this light do the job? My usual support is a Gitzo 320 with a Kirk short (non-adjustable) column and an Arca-Swiss B1. I weighed the two rigs on the bathroom scale and the new set-up is about 1/3 the weight.
High & low. Extra height is nice for a tripod. The Feisol is shorter than my old Gitzo. I expect I will miss that height a lot. On the other hand, I shoot a lot of macro stuff where I want to get as low as possible. The Feisol goes lower than the Gitzo. This is because of the 180 degree swing of the Feisol legs. You can lay the tripod as flat as a pancake. The minimum height is determined by your head, not the tripod legs.
Vibration. The real test will be using it, but I mounted a 300 mm lens on the two tripods and did the tap-test: look through the view finder, tap the lens and see what you see. It looks to me like the Feisol sort of dampens the tap, but I see things on a longer time scale than my camera does. I won't really know until I expose a few hundred frames.
More to come, Pete D.
In the past year I have been all over the Hudson Valley in NY photographing bald eagles, at sporting events, and other outdoor venues and have never been disappointed. 97% of my shots are vibration free.
The finish in all likelihood will get scratches, especially the lower leg, but those are strictly cosmetic. Otherwise, it is very well made.
One concern I had with the Gitzo was the mechanism to hold the top plate in the ring. They used a single bolt to cinch around the plate and friction to hold it in place. Though I had not heard of any incidents, I could just see myself carrying the tripod with camera and lens mounted, over my shoulder as I often do, and the whole thing falling off the top of the pod. It just didn't seem too secure.
The Feisol uses a different attachment which includes a very tight fit between the plate and the ring, and a machined V groove that accepts 3 hardened V pointed set screws around the ring. the fit is so tight and the quality of the machine is such that with only one screw installed and tight that plate does not budge.
Shortly after I ordered my Feisol, Gitzo released the 3541, which had a re-engineered top plate fastening system. Hmm . . .
Previously I did not think it was possible to match Gitzo's weight to stiffness performance. IMHO, Feisol clearly matches and seems to exceed Gitzo. If you factor in the price, Gitzo isn't even close. For the Gitzo owners out there, don't get me wrong - Gitzo remains the choice for the professional and advanced amateur - there is no better-made tripod on the planet. However, for those of us that need performance and don't have a garage-full of gold bullion, the Feisol offers a no-compromise (at least as far as shooting performance is concerned) alternative. The Feisol 3342 is just a smaller, 2.27lb version of the 3472, so I am sure that you will get great use out of it. Enjoy!
As Steve noted, the rubber feet on the Feisol tripods don't stay on as well as I would like. This is a very minor deal, and a small dab of Elmer's white glue alleviates the problem while still allowing them to be removed if one wants to use spiked feet in the future.
Kerry from RBC will send you replacement rubber feet at no charge anytime you need 'em.
Perfect as a hiking or airline travel pod. It will hold my Arca-Swiss 4x5 and is good with my dslr and 70-200 easy.
Now I think the Gitzo is a much better leg set-and it should be for the huge price difference. But for a hiking tripod for a digital kit and lenses upto 70-200 I think the small Feisols are the ticket.
Only thing to watch for is the rubber feet pop off. I put a dab of Elmers gule on them to help hold them on.
I scratched the legs something fierce on the rocky shores or Lake Superior, but it is purely cosmetic.
The leg locks have been easier to work with than I expected. I think the carbon fiber reinforced polymer is just more amenable to that type of lock than the aluminum tubes I'm used to. The Feisol legs have been easy to lock and always easy to unlock. This is much different that my Gitzo legs, which slip when I don't want them to and develop a death grip when it is time to fold up. In the next couple months, I should have the opportunity to see what happens to the Feisol in freezing weather, but so far, so good.
I now understand why it is nice that the legs can fold up, way up ~180 degrees right over a small ball head. What a great feature for a travel tripod. It makes a smaller package and affords some protection for your expensive ball head. My whole support system fits right in the manufacturers bag.
It is a small thing, but I appreciate that the tripod came with a decent case (with a handy side pocket), a few essential tripod adjustment tools.
Maybe I just have a Gitzo hangover, but if I were to do it again, I'd get the next larger size up from the one I have. The 3342 I bought is much lighter than my standby Gitzo 320. It is so much lighter that I worry a little about walking too far away from the tripod when there is a camera on top.
Pete D.