Giottos and the "Silk Road" model tripods

[xpatUSA]

Just received my model YTL 8383 and certainly it showed signs of having traveled a modern version of the Silk Road. Nicely made, at first sight, and it'll do the job. However the instructions do have a certain style to them, rather typical of a far-off land. Then, applying a little downward pressure caused one leg to retract rather easily - necessitating use of the (supplied) Allen keys. I think our Colin would have come a cropper on this one! After fixing that, the next adventure was testing the leg spreading function. Two would spread, the third refused. The aluminum detent catch button thingy would simply not allow itself to get by the ridge-shaped wot's-names that act as angular stops for said legs. That is, until the trusty 50 yr-old Wenger Swiss Army knife appeared and scraped away the excess material - which fixed that problem right quickly.

I am acutely aware of Thom Hogan's page about tripods where you start cheap, then buy something better, then buy something better, etc. until you've spent double what you would have on good, solid, _______ (write the name of your choice here) in the first place

Ho Hum . .

[James G]

Ted as you said it will do the job. I struck lucky a few years back, but strictly speaking as a result of disaster. I'd had an old (30yrs+) tripod which had served me reasonably well, but was very heavy, and it has needed continuous 'road maintenance' over the years, (I have 3 different Swiss Army knife sets collected over time ) but... it served.

Then, Jacobs, a family owned photographic company went belly up and had a series of liquidation sales. I 'acquired' a complete heavy duty Manfrotto carbon fibre unit at a fraction (25%), of it's retail value.

The old tripod went to my nephew and is still in service. The 'Ho Hum' for me is that I still feel an irrational guilt about the way I upgraded, and I'm slightly worried my nephew is not treating the old workhorse with the same affection I did over the years....