I take motorcycle trips and this is the perfect tripod for my Nikon D8 10

I take motorcycle trips and this is the perfect tripod for my Nikon D8 10  Read Less

If you're looking for a reasonably light weight travel tripod with a decent height, without having to use the centre column, th...  Read More

If you're looking for a reasonably light weight travel tripod with a decent height, without having to use the centre column, then the 68 Davis & Sanford TR684C-36 fits the bill fairly well. It's well built and the ball head is of surprisingly good quality but it has some limitations you need to be aware of.The specs list the maximum load for this tripod as 18 pounds but in my opinion that load is way past the tripods usable limits.This tripod is perfectly suited to mirrorless cameras and smaller DSLRs, particular when used with short lenses but if you have any ideas of using it with long lenses then this is not the tripod to use, unless those lenses have their own tripod mount to allow you to balance the load evenly over the ball head.The legs of the tripod are certainly capable of carrying the weight. The leg locks work perfectly with less than a quarter of a turn to lock and unlock them and they lock easily and smoothly with very little tightening pressure needed.The inherent weakness of this tripod is that it has an adjustable centre column made of carbon fibre and while carbon fibre is very strong for its weight, it flexes way more than aluminium and is simply not stable enough to support heavy loads without flexing, even when used in its lowest position. If they built this tripod without the centre column and attached the ball head directly to the centre plate I'm sure it would handle larger outfits easily and securely but it is what it is, and is basically designed as a travel tripod, and for that role it does the job very well.Being a light weight tripod it doesn't handle strong winds very well but the stability is improved dramatically when you hang some weight from the bottom of the centre column.For the price this tripod is very good value for money and I'm more than happy with my decision to buy it. The build quality is way ahead of what I expected when I ordered it.Update:Something I didn't mention above was that when the tripod arrived from Amazon the bonus short centre column, which was supposed to be included, was not in the package. There was some info in the package about registering the tripod with Tiffen, the company which makes (or markets?) the Davis & Sanford products, so I went online and registered it. Once registered I was able to submit a claim for the missing part under the warranty.Much to my surprise, less than 24 hours later I received an email from Tiffen regarding the missing piece, and following a couple of further emails they offered to send me a replacement, which arrived in the post a few days ago. In this day and age of faceless online sales this was totally unexpected but much appreciated.... excellent service!Also to my surprise, the short column was made from much sturdier aluminium, and not carbon fibre and with it installed, this goes some way to reducing the flex I wrote about above with the standard column.Since this tripod is just about the perfect height for me (without needing to raise the centre column) I will probably leave the short column installed permanently, although the downside to this is that it somewhat impedes the ability to fold the tripod down for compact travelling but for most of the time I can live with this compromise.Again, this tripod is excellent value for money!  Read Less