You’d not be massively wrong if you were to ask what has changed significantly in tripods in the 2+ years since I last discussed this. There have been two changes of significance worth considering however, the increase in the capturing of video clips, and the reduction in load of some of the newer and lighter mirrorless cameras and their lenses.

In fairness, if your gear or use cases have not changed, then it is not likely that you need to change your tripod, although you may want to. Your work, your decision.

Are Tripods for Stills or for Video Different?

The answer is yes, but really comes to the subcomponents of the overall tripod system. I will explore this in both the leg set and tripod head sections.

Leg Sets

In the context of leg sets, you still want as stable and as light a leg set as possibly. For this decision you will choose carbon fibre. Bear in mind that not all carbon fibre is created equally, Number of wraps, wall thickness, as well as chemical composition have significant impact. The reality is that a quality leg set costs money. If you find a really inexpensive leg set, it’s unlikely that it is going to be a good choice. Carbon fibre will flex, but good carbon fibre will not twist.

Extend the legs entirely and space them apart at their native maximum width/ No press down on the platform that the head mounts to. If there is minor flex, that is fine, but if the legs twist, move on/ I cannot testify to every leg set out there, but I can speak favourably of carbon fibre leg sets from Manfrotto, Gitzo and Really Right Stuff. Camera store house brands or the same leg sets under 34 different brands on Amazon have all proven to be bad choices.

A leg set also has the mount for the tripod head. As a generalization, you want a leg set that uses a 3/8-16 mounting bolt for the head instead of the less expensive and less reliable 1/4-20. Sadly not all bolts are made from steel, preferably stainless stell and a low quality bolt will strip or even snap off under load. A good leg set has this covered.

If your use case is primarily stills, you want a leg set where each leg can have locking independent angles from the mounting platform. You would also like the ability to change the type of foot on the leg. This could be a foot with a spike with a rubber foot that screws down to hide the spike, or interchangeable feet to allow you to choose the best foot, either rubber, rock claw or ground spike. This will mean a more expensize leg set that will likely only come with one foot type with the others available as optional extras.

If your primary use case is video, independent angles become less important whereas the presence of mid leg spreaders are more important to allow binding the legs together to hold spacing. Better leg sets allow for independent leg angles via extensible spreaders. If you will be doing a lot of in studio type video, a second spreader set that has casters and that captures the foot of each leg is optimal. You will tend to find these on video tripod brands specifically rather than on still tripod brands. Manfrotto does some decent video leg sets, but I prefer the leg sets from Sachtler. When considering a leg set, pay attention to whether the head mount is a flat platform or a bowl mount which is definitely preferable.

Tripod Heads

For stills work, your best choice remains a ball head. Whether the ball mounts at the platform or the ball is at the camera mount is a personal choice. The latter is sometimes called a planetary mount. A proper ball head locks easily without a lot of tension applied and can be controlled very finitely as to the amount of tension applied against movement. You want separate pan and tilt controls. If there is only one control, shy away from that head. Good ball heads are available from Really Right Stuff and Gitzo with some from Manfrotto being ok, but the inexpensive ones are disappointing. For a planetary ball head, you cannot beat the models from Arca Swiss. I have owned planetary heads under the Platypod brand but personally do not recommend them.

The gimbal head is a special use head used with very long lenses to optimize camera+lens balance for pan and tilt. Your lens will have to have a tripod foot to use a gimbal well. There are a few really good gimbals available including those from Wimberley, Really Right Stuff and Jobo. They all tend to use an Arca Swiss style dovetail, and you should plan on adding a long Arca Swiss plate to your lens tripod foot in order to improve your balancing set up.

A video head is typically not a ball head and certainly does not allow for a portrait orientation for the camera. The head will have a long control arm that is used in conjunction with two controls, one for pan and one for tilt. Movements in a video head are always damped for smoothness, most commonly with some type of viscous fluid in the sealed enclosure. The best heads use a bowl mount and this means that the leg set must be capable of taking a bowl mount head. A bowl mount makes levelling fast and accurate. It is by far the best method for levelling when doing video. The mount will typically be for a wider than Arca Swiss dovetail long plate to allow for balancing the camera system on the tripod head. It’s a completely different model. Video heads from Manfrotto, Really Right Stuff and Sachtler

Camera Mounts

The best camera to tripod mounts are the Arca Swiss dovetail. It is a standard and is proven over decades of use. I will never recommend a head that does not offer an Arca Swiss dovetail mount and I only recommend Arca Swiss compliant plates and L brackets for cameras. Be cautious with some so called Arca Swiss plates from the Far East that look right but that are dimensionally incorrect and made of very light white metal. A plate made from billet aluminum is your best option. A bad plate will defeat all the good steps that you have taken. Note again, that a video head will use a different type of dovetail plate, so be prepared to acquire a longer plate if the one that comes with the head is short.

Wrapping Up

It’s not hard to buy the right tripod but it is all too easy to buy the wrong tripod. The world’s closets are filled with them. Buy your last tripod first. A good tripod will last a lifetime and beyond under normal use. A cheap tripod will be a pain in the butt. Vendors often want to sell you a tripod case. I have yet to find value in one of these things, and for me, it’s just one more thing to get in the way.

A good tripod kit is an investment. If you spend $5000 on your camera and first lens, allocating 20% of that to your tripod is a good plan. Use the 20% guide in general and your odds of success improve.

Please become a member on Patreon to help support this channel. A big thanks to all the existing Patreon members! Send in comments or questions, I read and respond to all. If you shop with B&H Photo Video, please use the link on the main page as it pays me a small commission and does not cost you anything to do so. Thanks again and we will see each other again soon.