Friday, May 3, 2013

It came from Stagsden,,,,, UPDATED: added photo.

Remember back when I said I won a FaceBook contest and the prize was a new tripod?
Well looky what arrived yesterday.
Heres how it all played out.
I gave them my mailing address assuming they would put this in the mail from the UK.
I waited for a few weeks and then began checking the post office each week.
Then I got a message from 3 Legged thing saying ‘The UPS guy is having trouble finding you.”
Oh no,, they sent it UPS?? I have never heard of a UPS delivery here. Shit, now what.
Then a few days later I got a call from Taca Airlines in BZ city telling me they had some cargo for me that needed to clear customs.
OK,, that has to be the tripod, right.
So the nice lady sez she will send it thru customs, get the duty amount and call me.
That process took a week.
She tells me the duty will be 147.00bz plus 30 for her time. So 177 bz gets transferred to an account. (another story in itself)
Then as she is telling me it is on a flight to me, she also sez they calculated wrong, the new duty amount is only 50bz!
So my FREE 450.00us prize only cost me 80bz for duty and fees, and 10bz for the flight.
Not near as bad as I thought it would be.

So let me introduce you to Brian.
3 Legged Thing is a new company making tripods out of the UK. Small, only 4 employees (beyond the factory that builds the parts).
These things have been so popular the camera shops have been back-ordering them for weeks wait.
They name all their models after rock stars, Brian I believe is Brian Jones from the Stones.
They also have an Eric (Clapton), Adriane (some guy I don’t remember), Eddie (Van Halen), Frank (Zappa), and a couple others.
Brian is carbon fiber and some sort of alloy. It is so light I can’t get it to register on our scale!
They call it a travel tripod so light is a good thing.
Tripods are an item you either use or hate. And if they are heavy or hard to use they end up stuck in the corner gathering dust.
My 20 yr old Manfrotto is heavy but sturdy as all hell and still in perfect shape. But I can count the times I hiked with it on one hand,, too heavy and cumbersome.
Brian came with a case and shoulder strap so right off I bet I grab it more often.
He folds up to less than half the old one did also.

You can see there are 3 bubble levels built into it, I am sure I will never even glance at them but the idea is great.
It also opens up to about 7 feet tall! I have no idea why anyone would need that but hey,, kinda cool I suppose.
Brian also will lay almost completely flat too. And you can invert the center stem to get your camera on the floor.

I know, I know,, just how much can  a guy blather on about a tripod?
But I have never won anything like this before!! Cool!


 Rock and Lock!



The proud owner and his pal Brian!

4 comments:

RPM said...

Looks awesome! I bet you get a lot of use out of it. Just remember, no tripods when shooting bats! :)

Anonymous said...

You can blather on about photo equipment anytime! Have a Gitzo with a Manfrotto head that weighs over 5 pounds. Let us know how it works out and love your reviews on Nikon stuff, too.

AJ Baxter said...

Nice tripod! 3LT makes the head too?

Barnacle said...

yes,, it's called AirHead