The epic travel tripod search begins

OK, so I need a new compact travel tripod, and I mean compact, and it's gotta be able to hold at least a Canon 5D Mark II and a 24-70 f/2.8 lens, and ideally my 1Ds Mark II and the same lens. Did I mention that I want the whole thing to fold down to 16 inches or so?

I've found several from Gitzo that meet the weight criteria, but they're all 20+ inches long when folded, so they're out of the running. The Gitzo 1541T carbon model definitely fits the bill, but it's price is a usurious $600, *without* a head. I'm sure it's a swell tripod, but I'd rather put that money toward another lens or some lighting gear.

So the search continued. In 2007 I bought a small carbon Induro for a trip to Europe, but it was kinda flimsy and still fairly long when stowed (about 20 inches), and the spelling of the name drove me nuts, so it was sold off via eBay.

Things then swung the other way - if I couldn't find the compact tripod of my dreams for less than the price of a cheap used car, I'd get something really sturdy and compactness be damned. The Gitzo GT2942 seemed nice, so I got one, along with a second-hand aluminum Gitzo G1415. Oddly enough, they're the same length folded (19 inches), but the 1415 weighs as much as a school bus. Once it's set up, though, it doesn't move. They've both been serving me well for the past year or so.

But now there's a three-week trip to India on the horizon and being able to travel very light is again something important. The spendy Gitzo is still not an option, even if only on principle.

An evening's worth of Web searching turned up the relatively new Chinese brand Benro. Calumet and Adorama stock most of their stuff, and of special interest is a line called "travel angel," which looked like a reverse-engineered version of the svelte Gitzo, but at nearly half the price. Reviews were difficult to come by, and, as the ones I found were written by photographers, the grammar was so lousy that I again got disgusted and moved on. Having been an editor in my past life, the running joke in the newsroom was that most photographers couldn't spell their own names save for the fact that they'd had their whole lives to practice it.

In any event, I thought that the largest model would work, and the aluminum version (TRA269) seemed priced quite nicely at $190 from Adorama.

Then we enter the world of "this is why buying locally is better than mail order." No one in Seattle stocks the Benro tripods, though, so I'm buying without the ability to actually handle the tripod first. The tripod arrived late last week - build, fit and finish, and functions were all great, especially for the price. I didn't at all like the head's quick-release platform, but I was planning to swap it out anyway with a Really Right Stuff B2 Pro platform I had kicking around, so no big deal there. The problem, and eventual deal-breaker, was the diameter of the thing when folded up. The folded length was perfect at about 16", but it was nearly 5" in diameter, which would be like sticking a stack of one-quart paint cans in your camera bag; too bulky!

There are two smaller models available, the TRA169 and TRA069, but nowhere can I find listed the closed diameter of any tripod. The smaller aluminum versions only holds five pounds, so it's out, but the carbon TRCB069 holds 12 pounds and should do the trick. Adorama wants $400, but I can get it on eBay for $300 straight from China, so that's where the process stands for now while I decide whether to buy the thing from China and risk not liking it.

So, it's back to Adorama with the aluminum Benro TRA269 tripod for now. If anyone actually reads this post and has any suggestions, I'm all ears.