Hunting Tripods: Our Picks for the Cheapest, Lightest, and Best All Around!

We got a good one today. Garth and I are gonna go over tripod legs. Not talking about the tripod head, strictly the legs. Yes. Now there's a lot of options again, but we went with the two flagship brands, Su-Ray and Slick. When I started out, the barrier of entry was like, well, I can't afford a carbon fiber tripod. They're too expensive. I'm paying enough for this aluminum tripod. Right. But with technology, the funny thing is, it'll slowly come down in price. We're gonna run through all of these tripods, what we like, what we don't like. We're talking about a tripod for a backpacking hunt, but something that you can also use on every hunt. Yeah. I only have one tripod. You've only got one tripod that you use. You don't need a big, heavy tripod, I don't think, for your truck hunts, and then a super lightweight one for your backpacking hunts. No. You can find that middle ground. And you'll realize that after we go through these options, and to be fair, I was always in that notion. I need a lightweight setup for my backpacking trips, and I need a bigger setup for when I'm just base camping. Not the case. So, what we're gonna be looking at in these tripod legs is height, right? I think we kind of agreed in the office that when you're buying a tripod, you want one that's gonna get you about 65 inches. You want something that you can stand and glass from. Yeah. Especially when you're on a downhill slope, you need that height so you can get those binos on there, and have legs that are taller than you so that they can be below you on a slope, and you can still glass if you've got pressure. That was the main thing I realized when I first bought my first backpack tripod. It was just a two-leg system. Had one extension. I tested it out on flat ground, and I'm like, oh, yeah, I can sit up all day long and glass with this thing. Until I sat down on a steep hill, and I was just sitting there, and I was having to squat down fully extended with this fully extended, what am I gonna call that, Brady, the shaft? The extension. But with it fully extended, I was still having to kneel down, and I was like, there is a better way. Yeah, so we want height. You want something that's lightweight. You want something that's packable. You want something that's durable, something that has good build quality, something that's not gonna break when it tips over. We're also gonna be looking at tripods that have a four-leg section, and I'll give an example real quick. This is the Slick 733. This is the Slick 734. They're the same weight. I think they're similar price. This is a three-leg section. This is a four-leg section. Hence the 33 and 34. Correct. Now, why do we say you want a four-leg over a three-leg? So this, my initial reaction to Brady, and this is me just not knowing and not looking into this, I was like, well, this three-leg section is obviously lighter, because it's only got three legs. But my surprise, I was wrong. These are the exact same weight. So in my opinion, I mean, just that was the only reason I would have went with that three-leg section, because obviously this compacts down. Right. Smaller. It's shorter. It just is like- We're talking about a backpacking tripod. You want- Yeah. Size matters, right? You don't want a big, bulky tripod in your backpack that's sticking up if you're going under underbrush or things like that. And you're going to have a head on here that's gonna even extend it up this much more. It's just gonna catch, you have the ability to catch on more stuff. Right. Just harder to get around. The biggest argument, in my opinion, for a three-leg over a four-leg is setup time. You're doing two twists instead of three. And that's why I purchased this tripod. This is the one I used to use. That's why I bought this tripod, because as a camera guy, I need to set up right away. Now, I found that I didn't like the height. With the tripod head on there, I needed something that was a little bit lower. Yeah. Something that fit in my backpack better, something that wasn't gonna grab on the brush, so. Now, let me ask you a quick question, just because I am curious about it. With there being an additional, like, what I would say, link in here, does that make any difference in the rigidity? I think it does. Actually, here, let's look at that real quick. So. I don't know how I'm gonna put this out there. Well, just. Yeah, it's just like this. Hold it up here. Now let me push on. I don't know, it's hard to say. It's hard, I mean. I think you do notice. There is, I mean, at least from my opinion, there is a little more flex in this. Sure. Four leg system than that three leg system. I think it'd be impossible to say there's not, just because you have more components. I will say that based off the fact, based off the fact that I am running a spotting scope and not something super heavy, and also as we demonstrate in this video, like the importance of having counterweight on there to, you know, alleviate some of that flex, I don't think that's an issue. I think you're right. I think you're getting way more benefit from having the more compact tripod. And that leads me into a little bit of a rant. Before we did this video, I went and did a lot of research. I looked at a lot of videos on YouTube. I saw hardly any that talked about the importance of the hook at the bottom of your extender column. In fact. Blows me away. You would see some, you would see some reviews that say. Not gonna say the name. I don't know why these hooks are even on here. I just take mine off and I'm like. Yeah, guy was like, I just take it off to save weight. It saves weight. I'm thinking to myself, that saved you maybe a half an ounce at the most. Maybe. Yeah. And what that can save you. What that does for you. In like just that being able to put counterweight on there. But see on that same video, they talked about stability of a tripod. They go and they say, you know what's really important in a tripod is stability. Yes. I agree. Stability is important, but what does that mean? Stability means stable at the head. Yes. When you're talking about stability, nothing will get you more stability than putting your backpack on here, putting 20 pounds and hanging it off the center. Easily. If it's windy, you need that. What's funny is the, I remember watching a video. I think it was an old video that Ryan Hatch did back in the day when he was glassing with big eyes. And he said, this is the tripod I use for big eyes. He pulled out a surveyor's tripod, basically shoot, shoot, shoot. And said, this is the most stable. Well, he wasn't wrong. Right. That is the most stable. You want to know why? Cause that tripod probably weighs 50 pounds when you pull it out and you set it out. So the weight of that holding that stability in place, that's what's making it. And what you're gaining from that hook is you're adding that extra weight to stabilize the tripod. So it's stable right here. So that being said, let's jump into these four models of tripod. And we'll talk about what we thought after using them. You want to start out with the Slick 734. Yes. And one thing I will say about the Slick in general, and this is just all of the Slick tripods. They have kind of a dual system right here for the collar, which is kind of nice. So basically you have this twist lock right here and you have a twist lock right here to allow that, you know, to extend and go back down. Now you'll notice that that does extend up past this collar right here. But what is nice about this is you can take, secure this down and secure this down. And it gives you added stability in my opinion, because it's not moving as much as say this one, where you can see, I mean, once you cinch it down, it's good, but you can see there's still a little bit of movement right there at the top. This one specifically, it has the thicker tripod legs, which allows it to be more sturdy when it's at full, when it's at, what do you say, full extension. So it is nice as far as that goes. This is super easy to adjust. You just pull it out, pull it up. I mean- Slides smooth. There's aluminum on this upper shaft. It is, which does add a little bit of weight, comparatively speaking to these carbon fibers. The one nice thing about these that I'm sure there's a fair amount of people realize this, you can take and unscrew the bottom half of this. So if you did want to get down, you're in the field, and you wanted to, you know, take this thing and lay it down all the way, that is one thing. And if you had to shoot off of that in a prone position, you could do. And I believe- Just like that. All slick tripods do that. They do. Right? They do. As opposed to the Suray, that do not have that ability to do that. Now, to be fair, I have not found myself in that position very often, but I have a bipod. I shoot off of a bipod and that's what I use. So this is a feature that is nice to have. The one thing I don't like about it, as compared to some of these, they do not have auto locks. So- The legs, yep. You have to push those in in order to get them to lock. And like one like this that gets used a lot more, that's the, that's actually, I think the tripod that I have ran. One thing you'll notice, you have to back that, you know, back this leg off somewhat in order to pull that out. But this one is a super nice tripod. It's not the lightest weight. It's not the lightest. It's not the cheapest. Yes. It's not the smoothest, but it's a fantastic option. It's right there. It's very competitive. It is a great, it is a great option. Hold on. Screw that back in. The little brother to the 734 is the 634. That's this one here. It's basically just got a smaller collar and smaller legs, but it is incredibly lightweight. And it has a lot of the same features. Your center column can come out. You do have the secondary tightener for the extension. And the leg locks are the same. These ones are actually plastic. Yeah. And- Which is different than those. Which is different. These are the cast aluminum. Yep. The plastic is a little stuck. This is a well-used tripod. Yeah. But we were looking at that in the field. You gotta really pull on that. It's a little sticky. And it's loud. Mm-hmm. Right? Now, this tripod was a little wiggly. This, when you talk about stability, right? We're talking with counterweight. We were shaking it, kind of playing with it, seeing what it looked like. This one was much more stable than this one. So you get a lighter weight tripod, but you compromise in that stability. You compromise the durability. And to be fair, this wasn't full extension. These are smaller tripod legs. So that's something that we expected. Absolutely. But it was a little more than I expected. I mean, I didn't expect it to give that much. Sure. Now, with all slick tripods, that I've seen at least, they're all cast aluminum on the column. Yes. You said that you actually broke one of these once, right? I did. I had this exact tripod, and eventually it just got to the point where that top piece of cast came right off. Yeah. So when you're talking about cast aluminum, it's gonna be more brittle. Now, the 734 has a much beefier one. I used the 733 with the same collar, and I dropped it. I beat the heck out of it. Yeah. And it was fine. Yeah. So I think that that's probably an issue unique to the 633. It's gonna be a little more delicate. Or 634. 634. Something kind of goofy that they do, is this, like if this was my tripod, I would shave off this plastic so that you could get that leg closer. And honestly, that's the only thing keeping it from it. Yeah. Like, that's the only thing keeping it. No, it's just this little piece of plastic. Yeah. So, let's go on to the Su-Ray tripods. So I'll start off, actually I'm gonna switch these. Yep. Because this is the more affordable version of the Su-Ray. And you'll notice the difference in the collar. Or in the extension, I guess, is what you'd say. Well, it's not, see the way that it normally goes. If you wanna put this as small as it'll go, you've gotta bring this up, tighten that down, flip this around. Flip, fold it all around, yeah. And then you have your smallest version of the tripod. Right. I will most likely run this in that collapsed version. The only thing that that's doing is it's allowing this to be shorter. So, the nice thing about this, so this is kind of a twist lock system. You don't have the little side lock right here. You just twist and you can fully extend it. This is a carbon fiber center post here, so it will run up and down. It is, like I say, it's a little bit louder. A little stickier, yeah. A little stickier, but not really an issue. Affordability wise, I think this is the most affordable tripod out of all of these. Yeah, absolutely. If I'm not mistaken. And I think when you buy it, it does come with a head. Yeah, it comes with a little ball head. The ball head, which like we said in another video, isn't the most ideal, but. It works. It works, and in a pinch, man, this tripod, in my opinion, was as stable as this tripod. Yes. Yeah. Now, when we're talking about affordable, we're talking Amazon $137 for this tripod plus a ball head. That's amazing. So if you're looking to get, like if you're just starting out, you're buying gear, it's all crazy expensive. I would 100% say get this tripod, get that ball head. And if you want to upgrade your head later on, you can. This. That's Cadillac. Is a better option. They just came out with this tripod a couple months ago, I think. I just purchased it to run as my primary tripod with all my camera equipment. It is waterproof, so they say. I think, you know, they just got some rubber gaskets on the leg now. My favorite part about this tripod is the size. Look at how compact it is. The reason for that is this triangular center post, right? Yeah. Other tripods, they got a circular center post. When you put four circles together, you're going to be less efficient. And then they have that dang collar. The plastic, right? Plastic collar on there. This one, it folds in nicely because each leg goes into its little pocket on the triangle. You've got no wasted space. Yeah, there's no air in between. When you compare that to the pack size of this one, it doesn't seem that different, but when you're trying to put that into your backpack, it matters. Oh, it's huge, right? Huge. And this tripod comes in at around 220 bucks, 230, I think. So it's still not a crazy expensive option. It's got decent leg locks, right? It's noisy, and that's probably my biggest complaint. Yep, it is a little noisy. But once you click it into place, it'll drop itself down, which I like. Yep. The thing that I dislike about this tripod. It's sticky. The center collar is sticky, and you gotta tighten that down pretty good to make sure that there's no play here. And there's still a little play because look at this, you've only got about an inch to clamp this foot and a half pole versus the Slick, versus the older version of the Suray. You've got this whole collar that's holding that down, right? So there's a lot more leverage on this little bit, and you'll notice a little wiggle. Still some wiggle in there. The fact that you're not gonna get, like this has that airtight system on there or watertight system on there where you're not gonna get dust and water back up in your legs. And I'll be honest with you, I've been on some hunts with this one. Oh boy, here we go. And this, you start putting the center post, this post down in the snow, and then all of a sudden you pack it in during the day and there's water all along this right here. You go in the morning to open that back up and pull it out, it ain't coming out. Like it is froze solid. So that is one thing, like in stupid me, I would forget to kind of leave that out a little bit where I could really get my hands on it, wrench on it to break that ice. I don't think you're gonna have that issue or hopefully you don't have that issue with this type of a system. Now, Garth, you've used this tripod quite a bit and you said that you had a problem one time. This came unscrewed and it was an issue. And all of the slick tripods have what I would consider a slightly overcomplicated system. It's the same. To try to put the leg back in. Pull this one off here. It's the same system, right? You've got the same basic components, but the way that the slick tripods do it. Oh, see that? It just fell out. So, you've got your coupler, right? On all these tripods, you've got your coupler that screws in to this guy. These pieces here are little plastic runners, I guess. Yeah, little spacers. Yeah, they keep this leg from twisting and they also keep a smooth motion. Now, slick, it's gonna be hard to see, but the slick tripods use two separate ones that you have to stick in their little hole and then get them just right to put it back in. So, you had this fall apart in the field. Yeah, and to be fair, I mean, the bad thing is, is I really was like, I don't know if I was sleep deprived. Like, I was not in my right mind. I think you were just cranky, buddy. It could be cranky, but you really have to like twist that the wrong way for an extended period of time to have it come out. Right. I was trying to pack up. I was trying to get all my stuff together and go home. And I was like, I just gotta get out of here. Anyway, pulled that out. And I was like, I don't, I didn't even know these two little pieces right there were even a part of that. I was like, where does that go? How, luckily it fell in my lap so I could see it all. But literally all it takes to make that an easier system is you put, you connect those two pieces. So, the Surrey tripods have capped, right? So, you just stick it on and then you're good to go. Versus the Slick, when you need to put it back together, you gotta kind of get that one in. Hold on, Brady. This one in. Let's see. Oh no. I forgot that other little piece. Was this a race? Well. Cause I won. Ooh, I got it right this time. Basically, I would say if you want a sturdy all-around tripod, I'd go with this guy. If you want a budget tripod, go with that guy. If you want a lightweight tripod, check out the Slick 634. However, this one's like six ounces heavier. Yeah. And in terms of pack size, you're pretty similar. Yeah, you're pretty close. So, you're looking at something that's gonna be more durable and it's gonna be more stable. Yep. So, I don't know, man. What was the pricing difference on this one versus that one? Let's see. That one was 230, I believe. Yeah. This is a $200 tripod. This is a $224 tripod from Amazon prices, you know, what you're actually gonna get. So, about the same. 20 bucks more. If you're the kind of guy that cuts your toothbrush in half to shave some weight, maybe go with that one. You're gonna want this one. If you're not that guy and you're looking for, you know, and you have, I mean, like you say, the budget is same, pretty similar. So, if you're not that guy and you're looking for more rigidity or more stability in your tripod. Definitely that one. And durability in general. Like you were saying, there's a chance that these legs can break. Correct. So. I've never had a problem with my Suray with this system. Yep. I think overall, that's the tripod that we could say is a winner. Yeah. Overall functionality, weight, compactability. I mean, everything, this one was the winner. Budget wise, I would say this one's the winner. Yeah, absolutely. And if you want to look at different heads, because the head that you put on your tripod matters too. You get the most lightweight tripod. If you don't have a good head on there, it doesn't do you any good. So, if you want to learn more about tripod heads, you can check out that video on our YouTube channel.