Manfrotto Befree 3-Way Live Advanced Tripod Kit Tripod and Fluid Head in Aluminum for Cameras and Camcorders up

I absolutely love the 3-way Live head that came on this tripod! The tripod itself is very nice--it's pretty, stable, moves nicely, and just feels very solidly built. What I like best, however, is the head. The fluid friction and adjustable tension is just so nice because it provides a way for the panning and tilting to be stable yet easily adjustable. So often with cheaper heads, it's a choice between super-tight or totally loosy-goosy. This head lets things stay in place when you want them to, but be easily adjustable without a ton of force and without jerky motions. Everything is damped and smoothed very nicely. Also, you can control the panning tension and the tilting up and down tension completely separately, which is definitely a plus. The head is also removable, so if you have a ball head or some other head you want to use on the tripod, you can do that. Also, if you want to pop the 3-way head onto a monopod or something like that, you are set there as well. Read more

I needed a second tripod to hold phones and light weight dslr's but that was easy to pack on trips and still had some height - this is a lot to ask and end up with a sturdy design. I got the fluid head too and it's incredible smooth and adjustable. I love my heavy weight manfrotto tripod but this is a wonderful second tri-pod! Read more

Both the tripod and the tripod head are well designed. The second picture shows the setup holding up a 610g zoom lens (camera + lens together weighing in at 1280g). When using a longer focal length lens, it does become fairly difficult to make small precise movements, but overall it still does what I need it to do. It also folds up pretty small when stowing away which is really nice for travel. Read more

Everything people say about this brand is true. The tripod feels super solid, very luxury, and extremely well-made. I’ve been using it for about nine months now and it has been perfect—sturdy, reliable, really appreciate this product. It folds down super small, which makes it very easy to carry around. It doesn’t have any crazy extra features, but it covers all the essentials and works just as neede Read more

My requirement for this tripod is to be lightweight and smooth travel. My other tripods are also Manfrotto, but cost around $1500 and very heavy (yes, "portable", like I can carry two - and only two at a time). This one is incredibly small and light - and when set up it was stable and still had Manfrotto smooth travel for my small video camera (Canon HF800). I would not want to put a heavy professional or broadcast camera on this, but for a small camera this is the best. Read more

Where do I begin listing the problems with this tripod? 1. First of all, the horizontal rotation seems to be just a big screw. That's a problem because, if you rotate your camera (or spotting scope or whatever) horizontally, you are also unscrewing it. For this reason it becomes wobbly and that defeats the entire purpose of a tripod. If you screw it all the way then it's not wobbly but you won't be able to rotate it any further in one direction. Again, when you are using your camera/tripod system to photograph something that moves that is, well, very bad. 2. It's not sturdy. I used it only 3 or 4 months when it simply fell apart. By "fall apart" I mean that the entire base upon which the camera is mounted broke into three pieces when all I did was try to remove the camera. Again, when you are mounting thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment on a tripod this needs to not happen. 3. The system for mounting and unmounting the camera is very badly designed. It uses a relatively small knob that is based on a screw. This is bad because it's mounted right under the camera, which makes it hard to reach. Furthermore, I found that the camera was not secure unless I tightened the screw VERY hard. This, too, was a nightmare because that knob is very hard to turn. This, in turn, makes it very hard to remove the camera. This is unforgivably bad design. In short, this was the worst tripod I have ever owned and I deeply regret buying it. Read more

I had a cheap big box store tripod. I was so irritated by the shoddy Chinese quality. This is an Italian made tripod. It is well made. I am impressed. I have used it twice and it offers great stability. I have no complaints and from the feel of it, believe it will do me for many, many years and possibly a lifetime. I would not hesitate to buy it again. Read more

Nice tripod. Arrived with some wear and tear, scratches appear to be from prior use or shipping. Also was sold and shipped with an out dated(Orange anodized) or discontinued attachment plate from tripod to camera base. Read more