Perfect full-size digital camera tripod?

The Velbon MAXi 343E Tripod was designed to meet a tough set of specifications issued as a challenge by well-known American writer and photographer Herbert Keppler.

Keppler challenged Velbon to create the perfect travel tripod: a low-cost, sturdy, all-metal design, weighing less than 2 pounds, and extending from 20 inches up to 5 feet.

The tripod also had to have separately extendable legs and feature both rubber-tipped feet and spikes.

The result is said to have been inspired by the trunions of ancient military front-loading gun barrels.

The MAXi 343E is found in the camera bags, carry-on luggage and backpacks of even those photo enthusiasts who've always hated carrying extra equipment.

  • Four compact sections
  • High quality ball head
  • Champagne gold finish
  • Combo spike/rubber feet
  • Easy flap lock leg system
  • 17.5 inches collapsed
  • 62.5 inches full height
  • Weighs 1.9 pounds
  • Carry bag with shoulder strap

Read Herb Keppler's original article below as it appeared in Popular Photography magazine at the introduction of this unique tripod...

 

 

 


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Traveling Steady With Your SLR (now, Digital Camera)

By Herbert Keppler

At last, the ideal SLR travel tripod arrives in the U.S.

You'd better like chrome: Preproduction sample's outer leg had green-crackle finish, but Chinese makers couldn't duplicate it and changed to chrome. (note: the finish is now a champagne gold.) Inner leg tubing's black on both. As every good product designer knows, there can be one heck of a difference between a hand-made preproduction sample and what a factory actually produces. (A production engineer once told me, "We can make a perfect one of anything.")

Some years ago, I wrote my specifications for the perfect SLR travel tripod: all metal, weight under two pounds, folded size under 20 inches (so it can be stored easily in airline carry-on luggage), eye-level height, quick extending and folding via flip locks, rubber tips, and spiked points on independently adjustable legs that can level the tripod on irregular surfaces.

Velbon's president, Koichiro Nakatani, was determined to make just such a tripod, but maximum height would prove a problem if the 20-inch maximum folded length and 2-pound maximum weight were to be satisfied. Velbon's engineers found a solution. Each interior leg section would have to extend the maximum length within each leg tube, and go beyond the point where the top leg bolts usually fit. After figuring how to do it, Velbon applied for international patents on its Trunion Shaft System.

Late last year, Nakatani presented me with a preproduction sample of the Velbon Maxi 343E tripod. "We did it," he said. Only 18 inches long when collapsed, and extending beyond my eye height to 62 inches at full center column height, the tripod more than satisfied my specifications.

The Maxi, beautifully finished in greenish crackle and black, stood surprisingly steady at full height, and opened and shut swiftly. When would it be available? I asked. It was slated to debut in April. The first shipment apparently arrived in May, which isn't bad timing at all.

But would the Chinese-made production tripod live up to the Japanese preproduction?

I compared the tripods minutely. They were exactly alike in every detail, right down to the cork-like composition inset on the ballhead. I had previously been told that the green-crackle finish on the outer leg couldn't be duplicated in China—and it wasn't. But many Pop editors prefer the chrome (remember, it's not chrome anymore) substitute to the crackle, so no harm done.

I was a little shocked, however, to find that on an outer leg, the tripod is marked "For Digital Camera" and the shipping box states "For Digital." Obviously, someone in Velbon marketing figured Velbon could cash in on the digital revolution. Foolish thinking.

The vast percentage of digital cameras now being bought in the U.S. are of the point-and-shoot variety, but few point-and-shooters use tripods. Marked as it is, SLR owners, who account for most of the non-studio tripod sales in the U.S., will probably figure the tripod isn't suitable for SLR use and pass it by. Hopefully someone in charge of Velbon marketing will realize the error and correct the markings. But rest assured, the Velbon MAXi 343E will serve SLRs (and almost all digitals) well.

Street price seems to be around $90 in the ads I've seen.