As you may have already guessed from looking at my photos, I like to walk with my camera! In fact I like to walk without it too but I rarely let myself So when my most mobile tripod took a tumble and I saw the panning arm shoot across the room, my other half could barley contain her joy, as she had finally thought of something to get me for my birthday!

So, with a bit of discussion and light persuasion, I managed to order a Manfrotto! I have used Manfrotto tripods at work for years but had never had the money lying around for one myself. I decided on the Digi series as they seemed to have the best balance of size and stability. As I said the whole purpose of this tripod was for walking so I wanted as compact as possible but still a full size tripod tall enough for looking over high hedgerows etc, so I went for the 715B.

Not only did it have all the usual Manfrotto traits such as anti-torsion D shaped legs and quick release leg locks, but it had a couple of things I think are simply genius! Firstly there’s the head, as I said my reason for replacing was that the panning arm had broken on my previous tripod so I simply love the fact that this doesn’t have one!! It has a permanent friction ball head! The ball allows 360 degree movement and all you need to do is set the friction with the knob provided and then forget about it, you just point and shoot and the camera stays exactly where it should!

Another handy thing about having the ball head is that there are no arms or knobs to clutter the thing up so the head is designed in such a way that it can recede into the tripod in transit making it an amazing 45cm long. Coupled with the free rucksack style bag make this the best tripod I can imagine for hiking/walking.

And if you want one of your own, Calumet have a huge range and as I’m an affiliate you can get a discount on shipping if you use the code below:

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