Tripod Selection Help

klr.b wrote in post #14928374
My personal opinion is that Feisol charges way too much for their tripods. I think it has to do with the perception of value. For instance Benro charges a fraction of Gitzo, but they're perceived as cheap tripods. Feisol charges about half of Gitzo, and they're perceived as better quality than Benro. Yet I feel Benro tripods are designed much better than the Feisols.

I've looked at both and played with several models of both quite thoroughly, and in my opinion that is not the case; the benros are nice, but not as nice as the feisols.

Most people seem to perceive feisol tripods as being designed worse than benro because of the size of the metal hardware; feisol uses machined parts, benro uses cast parts. That alone should tell you something about the differences in quality.

That said, the one part of a benro tripod that is designed better than the feisol is the leg hinge screw; benro uses washers whereas feisol don't, so with the feisol the leg screws get loose over time whereas the benro don't, or not as quickly anyway.

Sirrith wrote in post #14928479
I've looked at both and played with several models of both quite thoroughly, and in my opinion that is not the case; the benros are nice, but not as nice as the feisols.

Most people seem to perceive feisol tripods as being designed worse than benro because of the size of the metal hardware; feisol uses machined parts, benro uses cast parts. That alone should tell you something about the differences in quality.

That said, the one part of a benro tripod that is designed better than the feisol is the leg hinge screw; benro uses washers whereas feisol don't, so with the feisol the leg screws get loose over time whereas the benro don't, or not as quickly anyway.

Not all of Feisols tripods use machined parts.

DavidR wrote in post #14928538
Not all of Feisols tripods use machined parts.

Thanks for reminding me, I'd forgotten about some of the bigger feisols using cast parts. But then that is one of the feisol tripods that uses the beefier spider, not the ones which use the flatter, thinner spider which seems to garner the most complaints of poor design.
And in that particular case, the benro equivalent costs about the same.