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Hi All, my husband would like a Tripod for his birthday gift in order to take better long exposure pictures of the moon. He has a Canon Rebel. I'm looking all over amazon.com and see tripods ranging from ten bucks to hundreds. Any pointers at all on nice to have features, or favorite brands?
Hopefully $200 or under, unless I find out I really need to up the budget, I don't want to buy something horrid for my husband.
That's a good budget for an entry-level to mid-range tripod. You probably will buy aluminum legs in that price range, and either a "pan head", or "ball head". Either one of those will suffice as a general purpose head and as a first tripod, the photographer isn't likely to have developed a strong preference for either one. That being said, most photographers do prefer a ball head for general use because it's very quick to set. So as a stake in the ground, I'll propose a set of aluminum legs and a ballhead combination that seems to be popular in that price rage.
Slik has a really good value proposition in the few products I've seen of theirs. You won't go wrong with either of these suggestions.
I know nothing about the Dolica mentioned above, but it gets great reviews too and looks like a bargain at $55. I doubt it will be as sturdy as the Manfrotto equipment I've listed above, but they are completely different price points. It sounds like it should suffice as a starter tripod as long as you're not using any heavy lenses on it.
Here's an interesting read on how to save $700 on a tripod. Tripods and Ball Heads by Thom Hogan . I actually heeded the advice in this article on my tripod purchase and couldn't be happier. I ended up with a tripod that's a joy to use and will last me a lifetime. But obviously this would be way overkill for most folks.
When I first started out in photography, I got a cheap tripod and pan head. I found almost immediately that I did not like the pan head. You had to unscrew/loosen the handle, position it, and screw the handle back into place. It didn't always stay in the right spot, which meant I had to start the process all over again. Frustrating. It also had bracing leg supports similar to the ones in this model, which limited how wide I could move the legs. Another strike against my first tripod.
I finally upgraded, and now I have the Manfrotto 3021B PRO, which is the predecessor to the 055XPROB. It seems to be very similar to the 190PROXB that kdog linked to as well. I love this tripod. You can remove the center post, stretch the legs until the tripod is mere inches off the ground, and insert the center post horizontally. This is helpful when I'm taking a macro photo of something very close to the ground, such as in the photo below.
The ball head I use is the Manfrotto 433RC2. I love the grip-and-release of this model. It makes positioning the camera a breeze, and you can make minor adjustments so quickly.
I have this combo (though I think my head is the older version) and it was well worth the $200. I also have a Slik Pro EZ which was much cheaper. It's more than enough for my Fuji X10, and while it's not nearly as sturdy as the Manfrotto it's still stout enough to support my DSLR and heavier film cameras. The Manfrotto is is built considerably more solidly, but the Slik packs up much smaller, so I'm more likely to use it. Really though, if you spend over $100 and get a name brand, you're almost certain to get a tripod that's at least decent, probably better than decent.
This is all very, very good information, I am going to get ballhead for sure now thanks to you all. I will be spending the weekend looking up all models mentioned on Amazon.
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