Sinnofoto T8H2 71" Max Loading 20kg 70% Carbon Fiber Portable Travel Camera Tripod Lightweight with 360 Degree Tripod Ball Head Compact with DSRL Camera 71" Tripod with Nice Travel Bag

The flood of Chinese tripods on the market has been going on for several years now. The more ubiquitous ones usually share similar characteristics: aluminum/carbon fiber tubing, CNC frame and parts, plastic sleeve fasteners, and generic ball head. When they appeared several years ago they were such great bang for the buck compared to what’s available (e.g. Manfrotto, Gitzo, etc.), that they became quite popular. I have also purchased a mefoto aluminum tripod before and was quite impressed by it. This one looks to be similar, except it’s made with carbon fiber tubing to shave weight, and is pretty tall extending to a height of 180cm. It also has a monopod option which I like. I also considered the similarly carbon fiber T5LR1, which is more compact. My friend happened to have one that is almost identical to the T5LR1--I sometimes wonder if all these brands aren’t just made by the same few factories as they seem to share design and specs. I will be making some comparisons among these two pods sometimes as well.Here are some observations.LIkes:-- Light weight. Of course it’s intrinsic to the carbon fiber design. Putting on my electronic kitchen scale, it measures 1710g, or around 3.77lb, very close to the manufacturer’s claim of 3.75lb and within the margin of error. For something this tall, and with relatively thick tubing, that’s only slightly heavier than the much shorter T5LR1.-- Thick tubing. To achieve stability at this height, the tubing is thicker than typical tripods, including the T5LR1 and my manfrotto 3001. The specs say 28mm at the max diameter. It does look legitimate.-- Stability: The tripod remained mostly stable even with the legs fully extended, which is pretty long. However, given its light weight, it’s best to hang some weight on the bottom if you are really going to shoot with the legs fully extended to pull the center of gravity lower as well as stabilizing the tripod, due to the reason of the lighter legs. Despite the CNC aluminum hollowed center frame (where all the legs and posts join together) instead of cast aluminum, it’s pretty good even with torsional stability--where you twist the top against the legs. A weaker structure will usually give in especially with longer legs.-- Standard tripod head screw. This is important and a relatively common feature with the better Chinese tripods, but not all tripods have this and it’s still good to know it’s there. It allows you to use heads from other manufacturers and allows for a much wider selection to suit your needs. My Manfrotto Grip Action ball head fits the platform on this tripod just fine, for example. You can also consider other 3-way adjustment heads for more precise work.-- The typical plastic sleeve fastening method is tried and true. While the plastic inserts will eventually require replacement (one set is included), I haven’t really seen the need to replace my other tripods with this design yet, and I’ve used those for several years. The fastening method is fairly secure, and not too difficult to tighten.-- The included ball head is actually pretty nice. It has only one knob for tightening the ball joint, and another for panning. Some ball heads have two knobs for ball joint tightening, with different diameters so the smaller diameter with less torque would be the “fine adjustment”. However, after trying my friend’s ball head with that dual-adjuster design, I think it’s really not necessary on the included H2 head. The adjustment has an oil dampened operation, has numerical markings for reference. Most importantly, the thread pitch on that adjuster appears to be very fine, so that fine tuning is not only quite possible, but also felt better than the dual-adjuster design. Machining of the H2 ball head is also pretty nice in general, with little observable manufacturing defects.-- Invertible center post. You can actually remove the weight hook by unscrewing the assembly, and pull the post out of the bracket and put it on upside down. It’s good for macro shots and other situations where you want the camera low. It’s a useful feature and provides additional possibilities. However, given the tripod leg design, you can always just flip the legs up and put the tripod upside down and achieve the same configuration, though you cannot lock the legs that way.-- Monopod Functionality. Usually only the monopod leg has foam on the largest tubing, but this tripod has two legs with foam protection. I haven’t figured out the logic, but it’s nice to have a secure grip when handling. Also there’s a screw bit that you need to put into the top of the leg thread opening in order to mount the head, which is included in the packet. I kind of wish that it can be left on when you put the legs back so I don’t have to deal with a loose bit, but that’s pretty much standard practice with these CNC Chinese Tripods. The monopod is pretty light weight and quite strong that it’s no exaggeration that you may use it as a walking stick.-- Single center post. Unlike the T5LR1 (or many others sharing a similar design), this doesn’t have an extensible, two section center post. While it’s probably not going to matter most of the time, but the locking sleeve does alter the orientation and the load bearing of the post while tightened. It’s one thing to do that with the legs, but the center post directly affects the camera platform orientation and load bearing. Having a single post is just stronger and more stable, which appears to be the correct design choice for this tripod which can be used for much heavier equipments that every little stability measure such as this will matter.-- Standard Arca Swiss Plate Quick Release system. Another must-have standard, so that you can easily get replacement or additional mounting plates from any manufacturer and still will work with this tripod head as well as many other professional tripods.-- Looks professional. I know this is pretty vain, but for a “budget” carbon fiber tripod, this looks pretty sharp, with dark carbon hue and mostly understated color tones. I like it compared to the T5LR1 because of the color coordinated and rubber padded leg fasteners. The rubber padding is important because when you store the pod the legs will hit against the head. The rubber sleeves will protect the head from going metal-to-metal against the leg locking rings. On the T5LR1, however, it’s all metal. Granted the tripod provided a neoprene head sock to protect it in transport, but in real world use I personally eschew those bags and socks and just bring the tripod itself.Caveats:-- It’s hard to pick bones with the functional design of this tripod. It’s covered most grounds nicely and shows experience. It also seems to be similar to many other offerings here on Amazon, which suggest the possibility that they are made by a specialized manufacturer who had focused development which results in decent professional tripods such as these.When compared to the much more expensive brands such as Manfrotto or Gitzo, there’s still a gap in terms of refinement and materials. I’ve seen many Chinese tripods and some of them are really quite good and getting better really quickly. With this tripod, however, I see the more typical issues such as the lack of absolute polish in the details. You get a bit of scratch here and tool marks there. The foam handle is EVA instead of rubber and can shift around. The fastener system is sleeve tubing instead of a cast aluminum clasp; center frame is made of CNC groove reinforced aluminum block instead of cast aluminum. The ball head adjuster while fairly smooth isn’t always consistent in resistance. etc.Those difference still set the “big names” like Gitzo and Manfrotto from these tripods. Many of those bigger brands are still made with such clean detail and durability that’s nearly bombproof. However, you do have to pay a LOT more for those, often in multiples if not exponential.For most of us, even professionals, these tripods are not really functionally inferior, and covers most uses with aplomb. The little functional difference--if any--doesn’t justify the huge price premium for the majority of us to get the premium brand tripods. Of course, if you are willing to pay the premium for the absolute refinement and durability, this is probably not the tripod for you. However, if you are looking for a professional grade, durable, lightweight carbon fiber tripod that extends tall to the tune of 180cm, and yet still stays quite stable like the much more expensive carbon fiber pods, with all the functional features such as invertible center post, weight hook, and a good ball head thrown in-- this tripod may just fit the bill, at a price most of us can feel happy about.

I have to admit that the sole reason I purchased this tripod was because of the other review, by YSC. That individual should be writing reviews of photography gear for a living! Thank you, YSC, for taking the time to review this tripod so thoroughly and in such great detail.While I was blown away by YSC's review of the T8H2 tripod, I was even more blown away by the quality, workmanship, fit and finish and functionality of this tripod. I'm STUNNED that more people haven't purchased this tripod but I suspect that might change. I've had a few people ask me about it already, all them wanting to know the specifics; price, shipping, support, etc. While I've had no need to contact Sinnofoto, I suspect that if their support folks are even half as good as the quality of the tripods they produce, that I'll be in very good hands.I have to agree with EVERYTHING YSC wrote about this tripod. I don't recall if he mentioned the carry case and the neoprene 'sock' that covers the ball head when it's stored in the case, but it was a pleasant surprise to me to discover that added feature. Knowing that while I may very well bang it around while traveling to and/or from a shoot, this it is extremely well protected, and that's important to me.Rather than waste both my and your time, I'll just refer you to YSC's review and leave it at that. I wish other reviewers would take the time and effort to review photography related gear as thoroughly as YSC did in his review of the T8H2. I guess we can't have everything.UPDATE - 5/16/2018:After about a week of owning and using the Sinnofoto T8H2 (AWESOME tripod!), I decided to try it as a monopod. I keep finding myself walking around a lot more these days (Spring time is upon us!), and not standing in just one spot, and the monopod aspect of the T8H2 was appealing to me when I purchased it.So, I dug through the carry bag for the bag of tools, and turned up nothing. Fortunately, I still have/had the box and all the packing materials the T8H2 was shipped in, so I dug through all that stuff, but again, turned up nothing. I then contacted the seller (Sinnofoto) through Amazon's interface, and told them my problem. They responded THAT VERY SAME DAY and said they'd ship out the parts/tools bag on Monday. This was on a Friday night or early Saturday morning, as I recall.About a week later a DHL package showed up with a well sealed box inside and the bag of tools/parts inside the box. Talk about safe packaging! The tripod itself came very well packaged too, so this was no surprise. At any rate, it didn't take me long to figure out how to convert the T8H2 to a monopod, and I spent the next 2.5 hours walking around and taking pictures of our glorious Spring flowers and birds.It was a GREAT day and I have Sinnofoto to thank for that. GREAT SUPPORT! Very friendly and very helpful folks. I wish every business was that painless to work with! Once again, I HIGHLY recommended this tripod! Read the review posted by YSC, which is what I did and his review is what convinced me to purchase the T8H2. It is THE best tripod I have ever owned, and I've owned tripods since the early 1970's.