€150 for a tripod - recommendations?

Sleepy

My girlfriend hadn't a clue what to get me for Christmas so she's put aside €150 to get me a tripod rather than getting me a voucher and limiting me to bricks and mortor stores.

Any suggestions as to what I should be looking at?

I'm using a 450D, my current heaviest lens is the 50-250 IS (though hopefully some day this will change ).

To date I've mainly used a cheap slik tripod I was given by a friend though, without being ungrateful, I don't think it was much use for a dslr. The main thing I've used it for so far were attempts at lunar photography, a few attempts at still life and one or two landscapes (where I generally got better pics hand-holding)

Obviously, I'm not going to rule out something for being ten or twenty euro over budget but I really can't afford to spend much more.

Trev M

Manfrotto all the way I use a tripod and recently got a monpod and think they are great things

DaireQuinlan

A photography forum search on 'tripod' turns up about 81 threads. Go nuts

dnme

I'm selling a brand new Manfrotto as well as loads of other photographic goodies over on adverts.

Manfrotto 190XB Pro Tripod & 808RC4 3 way head (Brand New)
http://adverts.ie/175567

sineadw

Or have a look on Adverts.ie. I bought a small manfrotto new for about that and it died on me..

swingking

http://www.warehouseexpress.com/buy-manfrotto-804rc2-tripod-head/p1012868

+

http://www.warehouseexpress.com/buy-manfrotto-190xprob-tripod/p1017664

Should give you a really good tripod and without costing too much.

I use the exact same setup and I love it

RandomAccess

After looking around for some time I picked up a Giottos tripod from http://www.harrisoncameras.co.uk .

Specifically the MTL9351B tripod legs £71.50, and MH1302-652 ball-head £57

that came to £128 GBP ex delivery so would be around your price range.
Picking a pan head instead of a ball-head would come in around £20 cheaper if thats your preference. They have some video demos of the products listed on the website. Note that the MTL9351B has a swinging center-post, giottos also sell ones with fixed posts but I might try some macro stuff in future so thought it might be a handy feature.

I also picked up a Giottos branded bag for it as well and its very well made, thats entirely optional though.

The guys at www.lensrentals.com use them for rental so its fair to say they are sturdy and well regarded. They also have some articles on their blog which discuss choosing a tripod and head.

http://www.lensrentals.com/news/2009.05.30/choosing-a-tripod
http://www.lensrentals.com/news/2009.06.06/choosing-a-ballhead

lensrental.com seem to be linked to http://www.the-digital-picture.com/ which is a good source of reviews and information I find.

The packaging and build quality was drool-worthy and lots of pics are available on flickr,

such as
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=mh1302&w=all
and
http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=all&q=mtl9351b&m=text

I'm very new to photography as well and also have a 450D.

RandomAccess

Here is a further review (kind of an unboxing/demo) which features lots of close up pics of the Giottos tripod.

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=79878

and in case anyone asks, no I don't work for them! I just want to pass on the knowledge since I spent ages gathering it.

Mycroft H

Have a look at the slik tripods, there cheaper then the manfrotto tripods but ev every bit as good