Peak Design Travel Tripod on Kickstarter – Compact and Lightweight, Reinvented

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by Jeff LochMay 21^st, 2019

Peak Design is back on Kickstarter with a new campaign for an innovative tripod design, called the Travel Tripod. As usual, the team at Peak Design take a brand new approach at tripod design, and this one is no different. This new lightweight tripod is one of the most compacts on the market with such features. Let’s take a closer look at a tripod which was already fully funded in less than four hours!

Peak Design Travel Tripod – Reinventing The Wheel

In the past, we already talked about Peak Design products many times, including the CaptureLens and the Travel Line of bags. After eight (!!) successfully funded (and deliverd) campaigns, Peak Design – a San-Francisco company specialized in creating innovative photo and video products – is back on Kickstarter with the Travel Tripod. According to Peak Design, it took them four years to develop “the world’s most portable, packable, and easy-to-setup tripod for professionals and first-time tripod owners alike.”

Tripods are usually not the sexiest or exciting products, and they are all have been designed similarly (with little innovation) for decades. On a traditional set of collapsed sticks, there is typically a lot of space between the legs because of the center column or leveling clamp. The Peak Design idea behind the Travel Tripod is to compress all this wasted space when collapsed – the legs and center column are tight against each other, making the tripod a lot more compact than a regular tripod. When thoroughly folded down, the diameter of the tripod is just 3.25 inches (8.26cm).

Image credit: Peak Design

When you are on the road or traveling, you often let your tripod at home because it takes too much space or it’s too heavy. Now you can easily throw it in your bag, with a packed length of just 39.4cm. But, tiny doesn’t mean it can’t go high! When the five sections of the Travel Tripod are fully extended, and the center column is raised, it can go up to 152.4cm. Also, two versions are available: an aluminum leg version that weighs 1.56Kg and a carbon fiber one that weighs 1.27Kg. The weight capacity is 9.1Kg.

Deploying the Travel Tripod legs is fast and straightforward, by unlocking the three sets of cam lever. You can open all the latches with one hand and one movement when it’s fully collapsed.

Image credit: Peak Design

Tripod Head and Features

Another exciting feature of the Travel Tripod is the Arca-Swiss compatible head that comes with it. This head is clearly for photographers, and you can’t compare it to a fluid head. Otherwise, there are some interesting design ideas in it. To level the head, it doesn’t use a clamp but a single retractable knob on the side of the tripod legs.

On the head itself, there is another knob that you can turn to lock/unlock the pan axis.

Image credit: Peak Design

On top of the head is the locking ring for your camera. The head design looks easy to adjust, level, and incorporates three portrait mode cutouts instead of only one. A traditional bubble-level is built-in on top of the head.

Also, at the bottom of the center column, built-in and hidden inside, there is a universal phone mount, if you want to take pictures on the fly. It’s smart, and it also doubles as a hook for counterweights when shooting in windy conditions.

Pricing and Availability

The Travel Tripod is already live on Kickstarter, and you can get it for $289 for the aluminum version and $479 for the carbon fiber version. Included is the tripod, the head, and a soft case. The expected shipping date is the end of December. So far, Peak Design was able to fulfill their promises on their Kickstarter campaigns.

In fact, Peak Design is a company based on crowdfunding campaigns, and the Travel Tripod seems to be a finished product, already. Still, please keep in mind that Kickstarter is not a shop or market place, and there are certain risks when backing up a project.

What do you think of this new Travel Tripod? Do you consider backing it? Let us know in the comments!