I'm a very amateur photographer, but I do have a heavy DLSR with a long zoom lens, and I'm often trying to take pictures of birds at full extension, so I wanted to try out a tripod that I could fairly easily take on walks or pack for trips. This tripod seems great so far.

It folds pretty small and comes with a nice carrying case. For casual use at home, I can set it to my preferred height and then invert it to tuck neatly into the corner of my living room for easy access - it stands well on all three legs and the legs lock in place. There are three adjustment segments for height adjustment, plus center pole height adjustment - the maximum height is well above my (5'6") head, and the minimum is low enough for resting on a lower surface if needed. The legs have adjustable angles but not infinitely - there are three or four fixed positions. The instructions are actually incorrect regarding how to open the legs back out - the locking clip on this model needs to be pulled up to disengage, instead of pushing down as they indicate.

The camera screws onto an included plate - the plate comes clipped onto the tripod and is somewhat confusing, but you loosen the plate screw to remove the plate, then attach it to the camera. Otherwise you can't reach the back of the screw to actually tighten it. This is actually a really nice feature because 1) you don't have to spin your camera around to attach it to the tripod, and 2) you can leave the plate attached to the camera even when you aren't using the tripod, and then quickly clip it back on when needed.

The tripod head has a ball level for adjustment, but the camera doesn't actually look level to me when the ball says it's in the right position, so I don't really trust it. It does absolutely help making sure that it's vertical side to side, but my camera lens is definitely pointing somewhat downward, so forward-backward vertical may not be accurate. There is a 360 degree horizontal rotation via the lowest adjustment knob, so once you have your position locked you could take pictures all around and not lose your horizontal line. The second adjustment knob is a full ball rotation, so you can move the camera in any direction in order to pick your position and then lock it there. Both very useful features, and seem to work well. The locking screws do hold tight, even with a very heavy camera setup in place.

There is an extra attachment piece to hold a phone, that then screws vertically onto the tripod. I'm sure that's a nice feature, but I don't think it's a selling point. If you're lugging around a tripod, it's not for your phone pictures.

All in all, excellent tripod. I'm excited to take it on my next birding adventure.