Tripods must be one of the least sexy items of photographic equipment, but over the last couple of years they have occupied a lot of my thinking.

For a long time (over 20 years) I’ve used a couple of Manfrotto tripods. One for video and one for general photography. Both are aluminium, both large and both heavy. So heavy that they could be used as boat anchors. When I first started photography some 40 years ago there was a saying that you could judge how serious a photographer was by the weight of his/her tripod. By that criteria I must’ve been very serious. When I started using mirrorless cameras with a combination of In Body Image Stabilisation (IBIS) and lens based Image Stabilisation (also called Optical Stabilisation) I thought I could do without a tripod, but, I quickly realised the error of my ways. Now if my photography was just limited to a studio or somewhere I could just work out of the back of my car then the two Manfrottos would be be fine, but I don’t and I usually find myself carrying a tripod out in the bush for hours, and as I’ve a bad back weight has become a big factor. Another criteria is that most of what I photograph or video is close to the ground so a tripod should be able to open up as flat as possible. The final selection criteria was that I shouldn’t have to sell vital organs to afford them. I looked at Manfrotto and Gitzo and had a severe episode of wallet contractions. When they subsided I began to look at other alternatives. The last decade or so has seen a number of Chinese companies start to compete with the established companies. At first they just made cheap knockoffs of other brands, but now they have come to be real innovators while offering incredible value for money. Sirui are one one of those companies.

With this blogpost I’ll look at what I bought for wildflower photography. There’ll be another entry that deals with my solution for wildlife photography and video.

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Sirui AM-254 Tripod with A-10R Ball Head

My criteria for a tripod for wildflower photography were that it had to be light and be able to get down to ground level without mucking round with a centre column. It also had to be sturdy enough to allow me to focus stack when using long lenses. Sirui’s AM Series of Compact Travel Tripods seemed to fit the bill nicely. It was then just a matter of reading spec sheets and making a decision.

 

 

 

 

I decided to get the AM-254 tripod and A-10R ball head kit.  The tripod legs are made of carbon fibre and has four leg sections which are held in place by rubber twist locks which are described as being sealed and “wear resistant”. The legs have a load capacity of 12Kg and weigh 1.04Kg, have a maximum height of 127cm and a minimum height of 14.5cm. The tripod has rubber feet that can be replaced the included metal spikes. There’s a removable stabilising hook which came loose and got lost which didn’t particularly worry me as I never use it. The A-10R head has a load capacity of 20Kg, a ball diameter of 33mm and weighs 360g. It is Arca Swiss compatible and comes with a quick release plate.  The whole kit weighs 1.4Kg and collapses to a 52.5cm long package that fits nicely to the side of my photo backpack. The tripod and head comes in a padded carrying case with a set of hex keys for maintenance. 

 

 

After 18 months of use this is what I have found. The kit has survived being dragged through the bush and appears to be very robust. When you open the tripod up to its maximum height it is not very stable as the the lower two sections of the legs are very narrow and flex a lot. That’s fine as I have never used it like that. The locking levers on the tripod crown are very positive and allow you to set the legs at three different angles. To deploy the tripod is a cinch and I can set it up at ground level in just a couple of seconds. 

 

 

 

 

The head I didn’t get on with. It’s well made to tight tolerances and feels very sturdy. It’s just small things like being unable to see the spirit level when the quick release plate was in place and the fact that on my example the safety lock didn’t hold the camera securely which led to a couple of fraught moments with lots of swearing. So I swapped it out for a  Sunwayfoto FB-44II ball head with a Sunwayfoto MAC-14 clamp that is both Arca Swiss and Manfrotto 200PL compatible that addresses the problems.

 

 

 

So what can I say? It is a small lightweight tripod that is very well made and it fits my needs very well.