REVIEW : VANGUARD VEO 265AB TRAVEL TRIPOD
Whether you are an amateur or a professional photographer,
owning a tripod is seemingly unquestionable needs. A standard professional
tripod comes with good, sturdy built-in material, which results in big sizes
and heavy weight. Perhaps that’s what makes the manufacturer trying to invent travel
tripod; a new generation of compact and lightweight tripod which suits those
travel photographers. Although it may be not as superior as standard
professional tripod, travel tripod offers a considerable quality to meet
photographers’ needs.
For that reason, I decided to get myself one of those travel
tripods. So, I bought myself Vanguard VEO 265 AB travel tripod. Why Vanguard ? Well,
the name may be a bit unfamiliar, but actually Vanguard had manufactured a lot
of great photography gears. Also, this tripod that I bought is relatively
cheaper and has higher loading capacity compared to the other travel tripod
such as Manfrotto BeFree. I have been using it for almost a year now, and
decided to write review about it. Alright, let’s see…
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| Vanguard VEO 265AB |
DESIGN
The VEO 265 AB is very compact and lightweight, measuring
only 15 inch (38 cm) when folded and weighing around 3,7 lbs (1,67 kg). With
this size, it is small enough to fit into luggage or attach into my camera bag
(or even some of women’s purse). This tripod adopt a very unique design, in
which the central column become the swivel point. This means that I have to
rotate the central column (instead of the legs) in order to extend it. I
personally like this design because it saves me more time to set up. The
standard central column can be disassembled and replaced with short central
column which is very useful when shooting macro or shooting at ground level.
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| Swivel center column design |
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| Size comparison with 1 litre soda bottle |
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| Fully extended tripod |
The downside of this tripod is that there is no hook in the
central column. We know that a hook in a tripod is very important as it enables
us to hang our bag (or some loads) into the tripod, adding some weight to the
lower part of the tripod, thus increasing its stability greatly when used in
the field. The solution is, we can attach a carabiner in the strap hole to hang
our bag for some extra weight to the tripod.
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| We can attach a carabiner to this hole to hang our bag for extra weight. |
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| Short center column for ground level shooting |
LEGS
This tripod is equipped with five-section flip-lock legs
(four adjusting knobs), which, if extended, will have a maximum height of 67
inch (170 cm). The legs are thin and sturdy enough for a travel tripod
augmented with well-designed knobs. However, I feel like the knobs are quite
quite rigid whenever I want to tighten or loosen them (though it poses no
problem). The legs of this tripod are equipped with rubber feet that can be
converted into spiky feet by rotation. It is, of course, very useful when used
in slippery or rough terrain. Finally, there is a rubber grip in one the legs
which makes it easier for us to hold the tripod when it is cold or when our
hands are wet.
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| Four adjustable knobs |
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| Retractable spiky feet |
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| Rubber grip |
HEAD
The VEO 265 AB is equipped with TBH-50 Ballhead with an
Arca-Swiss, which is simply a small and basic ballhead. Despite it’s small
size, it is very sturdy and precise when locked. There are two knobs; one for
adjusting the ballhead itself, and the other knob which allows us to rotate the
head (for Panning). Sadly, the mount is not a quick-release type, which may take
a little bit of time to mount/dismount our camera. Good thing is, the ballhead
itself is interchangeable, which means that we can replace it with more
advanced ballhead; such as BBH-200, if we like.
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| TBH-50 Ballhead |
So far, I love this tripod. It is so lightweight that I
always carry it in my bag. The tripod is also pretty sturdy. I’ve used it in many terrain, from sandy field
to river stream, and it still shows a great performance (the spiky feet helps a
lot !). I have no problem with the ballhead as they works well for me. However,
there is only one spirit bubble (horizontal level only) attached to the mount.
This makes me have some difficulty when shooting vertical.
To sum it all, The VEO 265 AB travel tripod is very great
and worth the money. Although it is not as good as other professional tripod
(but of course, this one is a travel tripod anyway J), but it gives you
great performance in a compact size. It is perfect for those travel
photographers who want to keep their gear lightweight but still maintain a good
quality.
What I like :
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Reasonable Price
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Lightweight
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High Loading Capacity
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Good Material Quality
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Good Ballhead Performance
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Extra low angle option with additional
low-height adapter
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Built-in adjustable spiky rubber feet
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Compact size
What I don’t
like :
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Lack of central column hook for adding extra
weight to tripod
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Lack of Vertical spirit bubble
Available on
Tokocamzone : http://www.tokocamzone.com/Vanguard-VEO-265AB?search=veo
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