This Tripod Is Legitimately The Coolest Thing We've Seen This Week (Yes, A Tripod)

​The most surprising thing about the Peak Design Travel Tripod is that it manages to get you excited about a tripod. By the time you're done scrolling through its Kickstarter campaign and seeing what this design can do, you're ready to take up photography just so you can get yourself one. Ditching the wasted space of a traditional tripod, the Travel Tripod packs up small — about 15 inches long with a diameter smaller than a Nalgene bottle. If you go for the carbon fiber option, it weighs about 2.8 pounds. The aluminum alloy hits just under 3.5 pounds.

Easily stash it in a pack and take it anywhere the good shots are to be found. Deployed, it has a max height of 60 inches, but can also be configured extra short when you need that low angle shot, plus it offers a counterbalance hook to stabilize your tripod. The head adjusts with a single ring allowing for full tilt, rotation, and lateral movements and since it uses Peak Design's standard camera plate, locking your camera to the tripod is near-instantaneous.

It can handle a 20 pound camera, deploys fast, includes a stowaway phone mount and makes you think if the wheel ever needed to be reinvented, Peak Design should probably be in charge of that. Back it now on Kickstarter (it's about $7million over its goal) and you should be playing with your new tripod by December.

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