It’s snowing, but the wind is wreaking havoc on the scenery so the beautiful snow cover we’ve had is gone. I mean, the beauty of it – the snow itself hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s just been blown all over the place. So when I went for a walk, I left the tripod home and only took the camera in case of some snapshot opportunities.

I must say that the backpack felt light without the tripod strapped to it. It got me thinking, for the hundredth time, if I should invest in an el-cheapo ultra-light tripod. Once upon a time I had a flimsy plastic tripod because my sturdy Manfrotto tripod was too big and heavy to carry anywhere. I sold both and got the small but steady Gitzo G1228 instead and I must say that I haven’t regretted it for a second. But even when it’s paired with the very light (and very excellent) Acratech Ultimate Ballhead, it’s still 2 kg. And 2 kg when hiking up and down mountains and through deep snow is a lot after a few kilometres, when I’m the one doing the carrying anyway. So that el-cheapo flimsy plastic tripod is often looking very good on the way home from those trips… The tripod wouldn’t have to extend to very tall and it doesn’t need to have a macro option and it doesn’t have to be very compact, it just needs to be a set of three legs that don’t weight much but can support the 40D with the 24-105mm lens (less than 2 kg).

With that in mind, I surfed to BH because they have just about every piece of photographic gear currently manufactured listed on their site so if I can’t find it here, it probably doesn’t exist. At first I looked at tripod legs because I already have a very small and light ballhead (even smaller and lighter than the Acratech) but it seems like all the legs are more serious than an integrated legs/head combo, meaning that they’re heavier and more expensive. So I looked at the integrated solutions then and found a Konus 3-Pod-3, never heard of this make but at 15 bucks the price can’t be beaten! But this Sunpak tripod is more attractive, the load capacity is borderline too little but with careful use it could be ok. I’m just wondering if there’s a way to get rid of that ballhead and replace it with the small one I already have, because it’s extremely good for its size.

One option I’ve often thought about is a monopod trekking pole like this Sunpak Versipod. But I can just imagine what will happen with a lightest puff of wind… and those small legs can’t be adjusted individually so it requires level ground to set up, and I’m rarely that lucky.

Which means that I’m better off working out with the Gitzo and failing that, rely on the IS on the 24-105mm lens. It worked today anyway; I was down to 1/20 sec and no problems with it!