After my glowing review of the iFootage monopod last month,
one of the most asked questions in the comments
was if I've tried their tripods as well, and at that time
the answer was "Not really,"
but today the answer was, "Yes, yes I have."
Let's get Undone!
[offbeat music]
♪ Gerald Undone ♪
♪ He's crazy ♪
What's happening, everybody?
I'm Gerald Undone and I am inevitable.
So, after your requests on the last video, I thought
it would make sense to requisition some tripods
from iFootage, so that we could test them out.
iFootage also agreed to sponsor this video
so that we could do a tripod giveaway.
I'll be picking a commenter on this video to send
a tripod to, and all you have to do is let me know
which of the three tripods that we talked about today
you like best, and why, in the comments below.
But, I'll touch more on this again at the end of the video.
[Batman transition riff]
So, we've got three models here.
We've got the TC7, which is the carbon fibre
Gazelle Fastbowl, and then two sizes
of the carbon fibre Gazelle Uprise, the TC6 and the TC5.
So, before we get into what's different about them,
let's talk about what they all have in common,
starting with the top
and working our way down to the bottom.
They all start with a 3/8th inch mounting thread
on the top, and they all have a levelling option
which is one thing that makes these tripods
really nice to work with.
It's done a little bit differently though,
on the Uprise, there's this little wingnut-esque collar
on the top that, when you loosen,
now you can adjust the position of the head,
and on the Fastbowl, you just turn this knob underneath
and then you can go about it that way,
and this is really great because that way,
you don't have to go through the meticulous task
of trying to balance a tripod that might be on uneven terrain
by making one of the legs slightly longer than the other,
and keep working at it that way.
You can just level it off how you like, like this,
and then tighten it down, and there's a bubble level
on the top of all three of them to make that job easier.
Moving down, all three have the exact same way,
and convenient way, of widening the stance.
You just push the leg in a little bit,
and then you pull out this brace and now
you can adjust the leg as wide as you want
and when you get to the terminal point,
it'll lock back in so you don't go too far,
and then if you want to go back down,
it'll lock each step of the way down.
This is much nicer than other you just, often,
they often use a way where you have to push a button
and hold it in place the whole time, and then go up and down.
I find that's much harder to do.
This is very convenient and it's a really good design,
and of course, all of the tripods can get very low
to the ground this way but they do have different methods
of achieving that, and we'll get to that in just a second.
They all have a grip on one of the legs which helps
with carrying and also will keep your hands warm
when it's cold outside, but this is probably
more of an issue with the aluminum models
than it is with the carbon fibre.
And then, just like we discussed with the monopod,
they all have those signature red iFootage buckles,
which I think look really good,
and they're very secure and work extremely well.
And, each one of them has a tool that you can use
that's attached to the leg in order to adjust the tension
of the buckles, and if we move all the way down to the bottom,
each one of them has a rubber foot
but you can actually screw up to reveal a spike underneath
that'll be useful for different terrain.
Now, if we just focus on the two models of Uprise,
the TC5 and the TC6,
they're pretty much identical except for the size.
The TC5 is a four segment tripod that can be collapsed
all the way down to just 21 inches or 52 cm,
making it the ideal choice for travel.
The TC6 is just a little bit longer,
when collapsed, at 25 inches or 64 cm.
They both weigh the same, at about 1.9 kg or just over 4 lbs,
and feel surprisingly light in the hand,
but the TC6 is capable of a higher maximum payload
at 8 kg or 17.5 lbs,
where the TC5 is only capable of 6 kg, which is about 13 lbs.
Now, of course, there are aluminum versions
which are cheaper, but they're about 25% heavier
and have about a 25% lower max payload.
♪
A couple features that both of the Uprises have that I like
is this 3/8th inch accessory port on the side
that you could use for attaching a friction arm
or something, as well as this strong metal hook on the bottom
which is not only detachable, but is capable of holding
a 15 lbs sandbag with no visible bending.
I've always appreciated a tripod with a hook.
Now, the centre column is obviously designed
so that you can increase your working height by loosening off
this secondary wingnut collar thing,
which will allow you to raise the centre post like that.
But you can actually also unscrew the centre column
from the bottom by loosening this red sleeve here,
which unscrews the thread all the way through.
Then you can pull the centre column out,
and this will allow you to get the tripod really low
when we cock those legs out again,
but also you can take the head off if you unscrew this now,
pull this out and then you could use it underneath,
in an underslung mode and attach your camera down here
if you wanted to loosen it differently and now you can use
the centre column upside down, in order to make that
underslung mode even lower than it would be otherwise.
and these features are available on both
the TC5 and the TC6.
♪
Now, moving over to the TC7, which is the Fastbowl,
we don't have any of the centre column tricks like we do
with the TC6 and the TC5, or the accessory port,
but we do have this handy little
unthreading ability here, which you can use to level it,
as well as a button on the side that we can
press to quickly remove and swap out 75 mm bowls,
and even though this is the longest of the three tripods
at 28 inches or 51 cm when collapsed,
it's also the lightest at 1.86 kg,
and it has the highest payload at 9 kg or 20 lbs.
The build quality is consistent throughout the three
and it really just comes down
to which features are important to you.
One of the things that I like that all three of them have,
which the monopod also had is, remember I showed you
that if you-- you can slide them up slowly and quietly
and there's like little rubber gaskets in between that,
kind of, absorb the shock when you close it.
It's got that, it's got the whole air release system
so they don't really fall loudly.
They're all built really, really well.
It would just come down to whether or not you think
that the Fastbowl is more convenient for you,
if you wanted to be switching out bowls,
if that was more your thing,
or if you're somebody that wants a little bit
of extra height from the centre column because...
♪
Even though the TC6 is shorter,
when the centre column is extended,
you can actually reach a higher working height
and it's quite stable.
Now, it might not be as stable as the Fastbowl,
when at similar heights,
but I've used other tripods that actually get
pretty janky when you deploy the centre column
all the way up, but I would say the iFootage ones
are pretty good but I suppose this extra stability
does come at a small con of something
that I've noticed to be a little bit inconvenient,
which is that it does take a bit more working
to unscrew this collar, and then the centre column
is a little bit stiffer than other ones
I've used to get it down, but my thinking is that
it's because of this collapsible collar
that's on the inside here, so in order to get that strength,
it kind of takes a little bit more work
to get the centre column up and down.
But I'm willing to do that because
I'm a big fan of centre columns.
And I would say that overall the TC6 is probably
my favourite of the three.
Now, the Fastbowl does get a little bit of credit
for being fast when it also comes to getting low
to the ground as well because it has no centre column
so you only really have to widen the legs then you can get down.
Whereas on these two, you're going to have to take
the centre column out or put it in underslung or something,
if you want to get it down to the same lowness.
So, overall, I would say get the Fastbowl,
if speed and just, sort of, simplicity
is what's important to you, or if switching out bowls
is something that's important to you.
I like the TC6, as, sort of, a best balance.
Now, the TC5 doesn't actually have to give up much in order
to accomplish its smaller size when compared to the TC6,
so that's a pretty great feature but it does come
at a higher price because you have to pay for those
extra tubes and the extra buckles.
Now speaking of price, the TC7 comes in at $299
for this carbon fibre version,
and $179 for the aluminum version,
and it's the same for the TC6,
299 for the carbon fibre and 179 for the aluminum.
But, the TC5 is a little bit more at 339
for the carbon fibre, and 219 for the aluminum.
And like I said, you're paying a bit more
for that compact ability and the fact that
it actually requires more hardware
in order to collapse it to that smaller size.
Now, this might seem like a lot of money at first glance
if you're new to tripods, but it's important to remember
that tripods are an investment and will likely
outlast the rest of your gear by potentially decades.
Hell, I still use a 20-year old Manfrotto tripod
as my b-sticks and, other than looking a little bit dated,
they still perform remarkably well,
and speaking of Manfrotto, iFootage is still giving you
a pretty decent discount off of the bigger brands,
for instance, my carbon fibre Manfrotto over there,
which is pretty much identical in functionality
to this tripod, cost about $80 US more.
So, in short, if you're in the market for a tripod,
I highly recommend that you give iFootage a look,
and I hope that this video helps you better understand
the different models that they offer.
Oh, and before I forget, because I know
somebody's going to ask, let's talk about
the maximum heights of all these tripods.
So this is the Fastbowl fully deployed,
this is the TC6 deployed with the stand,
and this is the TC5 deployed without the centre column.
Let's do their maximum working heights first,
so we'll pull this one all the way up...
so you can see I'm 6'4" by the way,
so you can get a sense of all these,
and they don't have a head on them, so imagine putting a head
on top and then a camera on top of that,
but if we do from the ground
this one is just over
5 ft at 61.5 inches.
I'll put that in centimetres on the screen,
and this one 64.5 inches
and if we drop the centre column down...
about 53 inches and then the compact,
almost travel tripod version,
the TC5, 58.5 inches
with the centre column deployed,
well 49.5 inches.
♪
So, which is your favourite of the three?
Let me know in the comments below
which one you liked best and why,
and I'll be picking one lucky winner to send a tripod to.
But that's going to be it for me,
I hope you found this video helpful or at least
entertaining and if you did, make sure you leave it
the old thumbs up and consider subscribing
if you haven't already,
but if you did not find this video helpful or entertaining
feel free to hit the dislike button twice.
Alright... I'm done.
♪