Hi, this is Jay P. Morgan. Today on The Slanted Lens we’re going to review, probably the most unique tripod I have ever seen. It’s like the Swiss army knife of tripods. At first when I got it I wasn’t sure about it. But as I’ve used it I realize that there’s a lot of engineering and a lot of thought that has gone into making this a very useful item for multiple different situations. So let’s just talk about what we have here.
This is the HEIPI travel tripod. It’s very compact. It has a center column that kind of Blends itself into the build of the tripod. And that’s interesting because this center column, when we look at it and loosen this collar, this center column, this is our center column. So we can raise it up and down to give us more height. I mean this will go up to 59 inches high. It’ll also go down as low as 7.87 inches. So you can get a lot of height or very low.
It’s a very lightweight, three pound, travel tripod with a lot of different options. Because as I come up with the center column I can tighten this off and it is my center column. But if I loosen this I can pull the center column all the way out and this now becomes a platform for my camera. I can either go low like that or I can take this and I can come all the way down to the ground and it just becomes a very low platform. Which I found that really interesting and quick to do. The center column is really fascinating to me. Because if I come up with a center column here and drop it back in, I mean I go right back down with it. Or if I flip it over and put this in the bottom now it’s under slung. And I can tighten it as an under slung use. So that same application.
But how does it handle the camera. I mean, that’s really the most important question. And it’s ARCA Swiss compatible. All I do is I set the square on here, line it up and the minute I pop it in the collar snaps into place. I make a half a turn and now it’s locked into place. So this is very simple to use. The minute I bring it back it releases. Turn it a half a turn and it releases. Drop it back on there and I tighten it. So it’s very quick to put a camera on and to take a camera off. From this platform the ball head in and of itself, I mean you can take this ball head completely off if you want. And this ball head now can go on, you can put a different ball head on here. And if this collar gets in the way this collar comes completely off. So you can take this off and you can put any ball head on here that you want. Which makes it very easy to use any ball head.
I found this little knob on the side here at first a little difficult for me to use. So when I tuck that little knob in on the bottom right there I was having a hard time getting to it. So I reoriented it, and you can reorient it, so that it would tighten straight up. It became very easy. Just a quick flip to be able to tighten and loosen that. And it just worked really flawlessly.
I did find the little knob on the back maybe a little tiny from my fingers. But it does release so you have 10 degree clicks. So it clicks around, as you said if you’re going to do any kind of a panoramic. If you want to have something so that you can orient your camera it just makes it very easy to go through and to find the different spots here. You can go in and there’s a little Allen hex key and you can turn that hex key and disable the clicks if you want this just to be a fluid ball head and not have the clicks.
I did find this really interesting. There’s a cell phone attachment here. It pops out so you can slip your phone on this thing. That’s pretty amazing. I mean, look at that. I would never have thought of that. But that’s super useful if we’re out shooting and a lot of times we’ll just pick up a quick social media post or something. We can throw our phone on there and that just pulls up out of the ball head. Which is excellent.
It has a lever locking system for the legs that when you grab it here, there’s four, you pop all those open at once. This comes out one time. It’s very easy to set up. Very easy to collapse and bring those back in. You can lock them all in place. Just roll your hand across it. Or you can do them one at a time. Just click them, come out, click. I mean it’s a different way of doing it. It’s not the twisting. But it’s very obvious when it is and isn’t locked, which I like a lot.
It does have a nice counterweight hook on here.
Each one of these rubber feet, if you turn it around, has a small spike in it.
So it comes with a great travel case. I like this because a lot of times I’ll put my travel tripod on the outside of a camera backpack. And it’s just nice to have something that just covers and keeps it clean so it doesn’t hook on things.
It does have, I didn’t mention that there are two bubble levels here. There’s one on the head. There’s also one inside underneath the collar. And those two bubble levels give you the ability to level everything out.
So it’s very lightweight. It’s made out of carbon fiber. So it gives you that really lightweight, about three pounds. But it will handle around 50 pounds of camera gear which is a really nice ratio. You got a three pound. The tripod goes up 59 inches. It’s going to handle 50 pounds worth of gear. I mean, that’s a nice ratio all the way around.
So I’ve been wandering around LA with the HEIPI tripod now for several days. And I have really enjoyed using it. It’s very quick to set up. There’s so many features on it that have been thought through. So it’s the right size to be able to drop in the pocket on the side of your backpack. I don’t like them when they stick up here. It’s going to hang on, hang up on things when I’m walking. I need a strap on here to hold it in place. But it certainly works in that pocket on the side of the backpack. You can put this inside the backpack. It’s not too long. And certainly if you take the ball head off you can get it inside the backpack. So it is made to travel.
So let’s wrap this thing up. I’ve been traipsing around LA using the HEIPI tripod. I can honestly say, and I don’t say this very often, this is the best tripod I have probably ever used.It is compact. It is lightweight. It’s super simple to use. There’s like three features on here I love. Ilove the locking and being able to take the camera on and off. It is super quick. It just locks. I love that about it. I love this little lever on the side which unlocks and locks the ball head. Very quick to do. Much easier than trying to twist and work with just a round kind of knob on the side. I love the lever, love that a lot. That inner column becomes a column or a small tripod. So man, for a lightweight compact tripod I don’t think you can find better than this. So it’s been extremely fun to use and I hope you enjoyed this review. Check it out. Go here to get your HEIPI Travel Tripod! So keep those cameras rollin’ keep on clickin’!
