K&F Concept 72″/184cm Camera Tripod, Lightweight and Compact
K&F Concept 72″/184cm Camera Tripod, Lightweight and Compact Tripod with Ball Head, Travel Tripod for DSLR with Phone Holder, Remote Control and Quick Release Plate*2, Load Capacity 10kg/22lbs
| Weight: | 1.65 Kilograms |
| Size: | TM2324 Actualización |
| Dimensions: | 44 x 12 x 12 centimetres |
| Brand: | K&F Concept |
| Model: | TM2324 |
| Part: | KF09.007V1 |
| Colour: | 72"/10kg+QR plate*2/Remote control |
| Dimensions: | 44 x 12 x 12 centimetres |
| Size: | TM2324 Actualización |
Bought the tripod after watching a YouTube video of the product. Excellent quality, really lightweight and the leg extension clips are so much easier than having to screw/unscrew to get the legs in/out.
This is a great tripod for photography ie used it a few times and it’s held up great it feels very well made. I’ve even used it on site with a laser lever and it’s beats other brands like Bosch and dewalt by a long shot in my opinion.
First impressions are that I really like the bag it comes in with the additional shoulder strap and the tripod in the carry bag fits comfortably into my usual daily backpack with room to spare on either side of it and isn’t as heavy as other reviews make it out to be, it’s around 2KG which is nothing.
The tripod itself feels really solid, easy to unfold and clip the legs securely into place with the support notches, nothing to build so it’s good to go right out of the box! Telescopic legs are great for storing and micro adjustment of the height and angle/position of each individual leg. The ball head, bubble level and fluid panning compass are my favourite features, the ball head is metal and is very secure holding my D3300, the bubble level is a really nice addition too and the panning compass dial also feels great, super smooth glide to it and no need for a big handle sticking out of the side of the tripod at full height the tripod with my camera on is around 6ft which is perfect as I’m 6’1.
Very impressed with the build quality and I honestly don’t think you’d be disappointed with this for under 100!
I needed a cheap, light(ish) tripod for a sudden trip to the Scottish Highlands as there was a fair amount of walking involved and this seemed to fit the bill nicely.
The head is smooth to pan, easy to adjust and locks tightly with no issues. The plate mount is arca-Swiss compatible so had no issues swapping plates on all my gear which was a bonus.
The legs are quick to deploy and lock up very securely. They’re relatively sturdy for the small cross section.
Some reviews mention that the tripod isn’t very stable and with the centre tube fully extended with a heavy lens/camera I can confirm that there is a definite (although relatively small) amount of wobble. However with smaller MFT gear I had little issues, especially when the tube is dropped lower. Using a guy rope and pegging the tripod down via the sprung hook kept the tripod rock steady in high wind on the side of a very exposed mountain slope.
I’ve not had time to use the tripod for an extended period so I can’t attest to its long term durability but I’m fairly confident it’ll stand up to some reasonable abuse, no doubt time will tell.
Is it as good as my Manfrotto? Of course not, but it’s less than 1/5th the price and 1/3rd of the weight, I’d buy another again should this one ever get stolen.
So when it arrived I thought Id give it a test. On opening the box, I saw a lovely, strong carry bag with sturdy zip. It felt a nice weight. not too heavy to carry places. Inside was a nice looking tripod with some nice detailing to make it look modern and more expensive than it was. The head even had another bag over to protect it, which I thought was a nice touch. It had 4 section clip-lock legs and rubber feet, with a height adjustable centre column with a weight hook underneath for added stability.
To test it I used my heaviest camera and lens combo on it, and it held them pretty strong, after giving the tightener on the head a good twist. It needed doing up pretty tight but it held a 5d mk 3, with battery grip and 70-200 with no problem. I tried it from the camera body just to see, but it felt much sturdier mounting it to the lens collar, but thats what its there for.
I did a couple of tests in low light with exposures of 5 seconds, and they seemed pretty sharp so the tripod was doing its job well. I did have a bit of weight hanging from the hook under the centre column, purely because my camera and lens were so heavy, but id always recommend doing that anyway.
Fully extended I found this tripod to be a great size. Im 5’10 and I couldnt reach my eye to the viewfinder at full height so it would easily suit the taller photographer. As with any tripod, it operate best slightly under full height. The centre column and lower part of the legs can introduce shake, so I would only extend those if necessary, but they arent weak by any means.
My overall impressions are that this is a great entry level tripod for those looking for something light, strong, and good value for money. Id definitely recommend it. I tried it with a 6d mk 2 and 24-105 too, and with that combo it was a dream, but I like to test things to the extreme before reviewing.
Since writing this review about the piece that broke which I fixed, the seller contacted me and offered me a partial refund which I accepted. I was not expecting this level of customer service and have upgraded to 4 stars because of this.
The Good:
Good quality right out of the box, and first impressions were good on how robust it is, how stiff the joints are, how tightly it can be locked off, and how versatile it is at maneuvering into any position you care to think of.
Overall, it is a pleasure to use, it looks nice, feels nice and is easy to set up. The foam grip is really nice to handle. The ball head locks off with a heavy DSLR nice an stable. The legs adjust in or out individually at any arbitrary angle from 0-180 degrees, but lock off at 4 separate fixed points for more stability with the spring loaded buttons at the top of each leg. It goes quite high and also pretty low, and if you flip it upside-down it goes that extra bit right down to the floor for macro photography or dramatic shots.
The bag it comes with, with optional shoulder strap is very robust and padded, and would be suited to mountaineering. It’s quite portable too. There is a sprung loaded clip on the bottom which you can hang a bag of shopping off of to keep it more sturdy in the wind if needs be. There is also a 360 spirit bubble on the head if anyone ever uses them.
The panning is very useful for panoramic photo merges, because it has markers to follow for each shot, giving you a very consistent photo merge, at least that’s the idea, which leads me into the bad….
The bad:
1. Upon only the second use, the pan head tightening screw, which is the smallest one, wasn’t quite tightening up and locking it, so I gave it another good twist and the threads in the pan head stripped easily and the screw was now useless. Not only would it not tighten, but the whole head became loose and wobbly, and generally unusable, because the threads were way too shallow and easy to strip. Luckily I was able to use an M8 bolt to grind out new threads (it’s only aluminium so was easy with a vice and spanner) and then use my 3D printer to print a new knob (bigger and easier to use this time) to hot glue on the hex head. After rounding off the tip of the bolt on my bench grinder this is a marked improvement on the original design as it takes less finger strength to lock it off now. It took me a whole morning to fix this, but I didn’t want to have to send it all back.
2. The panning does have another problem which could have cost me a new camera were I not able to catch it in time: If you try panning to the right while locked off (easy to do), it can force the head to unscrew from the base of the shaft, and this is a short bolt. If you don’t notice it, the whole head can just fall off, as it nearly did before I caught it. One more thing to watch out for. I took it apart and moved the inner bolt further down and gave it more thread to grip to the shaft and used all my strength to force it tight so it doesn’t easily do this again.
3. There is one more thing with panning… the whole shaft sometimes wiggles with the pan, where you think you’ve locked off the shaft after raising/lowering it, but you need a bit more strength to really lock it off. I’m sure I’ll just get used to having to do this though.
4. The feet should be more dome shaped, since the angles of the legs allow you do ridiculous angles. It’s okay on carpet, but the flat feet seem misplaced on this tripod when on a solid floor going at extreme angles.
Overall, this is my 3rd tripod now, and is instantly my favourite, despite it’s issues which I can overcome. I’m more pleased since I got it in Amazon lightning deals. My other tripods are more traditional, and very cheaply made. You can do a lot worse than this tripod, but then it also shows why there are more expensive ones on the market.