The Best Tripods in 2025
You’ve probably heard it before: a great tripod is one of the most valuable investments you can make as a photographer. Conversely, one of the worst investments you can make is buying a mediocre or straight-up bad tripod.
Updated 5/19/2025 by Jaron Schneider
If you skimp on the support, you might as well tack on the cost of those useless legs to the price you tried to avoid paying for one that does its job. Not to mention the headaches you’ll experience as you wonder why your photographs haven’t improved.
The best tripods can last decades and withstand rain, snow, mud, sandstorms, and just about everything else. Because of this, they are perhaps the absolute best investment you can make as far as gear. Spend a little more, save a lot, in this case.
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to choose one amidst the sea of hundreds of different models and brands. So, to help guide you in the right direction, we have compiled a list of the best tripods on the market, broken down into eight different categories.
At a Glance
The Best All-Around Tripod: Gitzo Mountaineer GT2532 Series 2
I won’t mince words: Gitzo tripods epitomize quality and craftsmanship. I have yet to be disappointed or even underwhelmed by any Gitzo tripod. Their attention to fine details, extraordinarily build quality, and unique features make their products among the best in the world.
Maybe the nicest feature of the Gitzo Mountaineer GT2532 Series 2 — beyond its overall build quality and compact, lightweight design — is Gitzo’s G-lock system which is hands down the best leg-locking system I have used. They look like simple twist locks, but you can lock/unlock all legs at once, or lock/unlock one section without the other sections being locked. On other tripods, this would cause the leg to spin endlessly unless you locked the other sections first. This G-lock system is true not just for the Mountaineer series, but also for their Traveler and Systematic models.
My only complaint is that, for a tripod at this price, they do not come with a center column hook. You have to shell out an extra $30 for the Gitzo D104214 accessory hook, which screws into the bottom of the column.
The Best All-Around Tripod That Costs About $500: 3Pod Everest T3 Carbon Fiber
For photographers who want the overall look, design, and many of the features of the Gitzo Mountaineer, but don’t want to shell out over $1,000, an affordable alternative is the 3Pod Everest T3 Carbon Fiber tripod.
Ranging from $400 for just the legs to $600 for the version with an excellent arca-swiss type head — currently on sale for $550 — the 3Pod Everest T3 is a rugged, great-feeling tripod at a very reasonable price. Having used it for months, it is my tripod of choice for backpacking, as it is lightweight but super sturdy. The tripod also ships with a case and has a clever inverted center column trick up its sleeve that enables photographers to shoot at very low angles.
The tripod doesn’t skimp on features or performance and offers great bang for your buck.
The Best Tripod for Travel: Falcam TreeRoot
When Peak Design launched the Travel Tripod, it had the expected effect: it changed tripod design. Not a couple of years later, new designs based on what Peak Design created hit the market, but most still couldn’t hold a candle to the originator. It took more time, but finally a tripod was made that takes the best parts of Peak’s design and re-imagines the weaknesses. It has a far better ball head design, is more versatile thanks to an interchangeable head system, and is lightweight yet still stable.
PetaPixel has been using this tripod since the launch of the Pentax 17 (some of the product photos show the top of the tripod in Chris Niccolls’s review) and there is a reason we have been slow to update this guide: we had been burned by portable tripods before. While we tested several travel designs including the one from Heipi that at first felt like good alternatives, long-term use left us less enthused. So, skeptical, we were unwilling to give Falcam the title of “best” without some extensive testing.
You also see the TreeRoot in use in the long-exposure waterfall segment in the review below:
Eight months later and with multiple countries visited with the TreeRoot in hand, we’re feel confident recommending it. It remains as reliable as the day it was purchased and is easily the best travel tripod we’ve ever used.
The Best Heavy-Duty Tripod: Really Right Stuff TVC-34L Series 3 Mk2 Versa Apex
The Really Right Stuff TVC-34L is a fantastic, tall tripod. I have been using an older version of it as my primary heavy-duty tripod for nearly a decade, and it was worth every penny. With regular maintenance, the tripod has stood the test of time, including countless hours in frigid coastal environments. The tripod is easy to take apart, which means it’s easy to clean and maintain. It has swappable feet, enabling it to be used in any environment, and is very fast to set up.
At $1,245 for the “long,” or “L,” version, the tripod is not cheap, and adding a head will bump that cost up significantly. Photographers seeking something a bit more affordable, smaller, and lighter can opt for the TVC-24 or TVC-33 instead, which are practically identical in terms of performance, design, and durability as the TVC-34L, but offer lower maximum working heights and therefore fold down smaller and weigh less.
Really Right Stuff is a great tripod company, and has been a favorite among photographers for a long time for good reason.
The Best Tripod for Macro: Manfrotto MT055CXPro4
At a more mid-level price range, the Manfrotto MT055CXPro4 is a very good all-around tripod for both studio and location work. It doesn’t fold up particularly small (21.3”) nor is it particularly light-weight (4.6 lbs.), but it’s a great compromise between portability and stability, along with several nice features that make it useful for a lot of studio work.
The chief feature is its Q90 center column that can be rotated on its side by 90 degrees, which is an excellent feature for overhead product or macro photography. The Q90 column can also be helpful in other ways: it has been quite useful for placing lights overhead or at an angle several times for me.
This Q90 column, combined with the tripod’s admirably low minimum height of just 3.5 inches, makes it an excellent choice for low-angle shots and macro photography. You can pretty much orient your camera to suit any situation with this thing. Oh, it also has a bull’s eye bubble level that rotates 360 degrees — you can access it from virtually any position.
Manfrotto is perhaps the most well-known name in the industry for tripods. And with this one, they have created a tripod that is incredibly solid and extremely versatile at a reasonable price. Features like the Q90 center column and very low minimum height make it a superb choice for macro work.
The tripod comes with a paltry 6-month warranty. However, this is extendable to 10 years with product registration. For better or worse, this extra step is commonplace across almost all manufacturers, so make sure to register within the specified time frame because a 10-year warranty is quite a deal.
The Best Tripod Under $200: Benro TMA28A Series 2 Mach3
I always prefer to recommend carbon fiber tripods for stills photography — they are significantly more efficient at dispersing oscillations (vibration damping) and settles much quicker than aluminum. It is also lighter in weight and has higher tensile strength, though I consider these to be secondary considerations since the primary purpose of a tripod is to eliminate camera shake.
However, at the same time, I would prefer to recommend a very high-quality aluminum tripod over a decent or mediocre carbon fiber tripod. Otherwise, as was said at the beginning, you will be back to square one and looking for a new one sooner than would be ideal.
In the sub-$200 budget arena, the Benro TMA28A Series 2 Mach3 takes the crown. Coming in at $165.95, it offers all of the most important features one looks for in a tripod. With a rated load capacity of 30.9 pounds, you can be confident using just about any DSLR or mirrorless system — keep in mind, the quality of your tripod head often matters a lot more when it comes to heavy-weight setups.
The Benro extends to a respectable maximum height of 61.2 inches, and the center column can be replaced with a short column (included with the tripod) to get down as low as 12.4 inches.
If you unscrew one of the legs and attach it to the center column, you can have yourself a monopod. The feet of the tripod can be replaced with metal spikes for use on surfaces like ice, snow, grass, dirt, or carpet. And the center column includes a hook should you want to attach counterweights for enhanced stabilization.
The tripod comes with a 3-year limited warranty, which is extendable to 5-years with registration. Not a bad deal for a $165 tripod!
The Best Special Use Tripod: JOBY GorillaPod
The JOBY GorillaPods are unusual and not exactly the first thing you should reach for if you are looking for your first tripod. I bought one on sale out of curiosity and the fact that I wanted a small tripod for my iPhone — I was surprised how versatile these things are.
There are five different versions that you can choose from based on your own needs — all of them are the same in terms of basic design, but they differ in their size, length, and weight capacity. Available, from smallest to largest, are the GorillaPod 325, 500, 1K, 3K, and 5K. The numbers correspond to their rated load capacity in grams. The 325 weighs a mere 2.2 ounces and is 6.7 inches in length. The longest, the GorillaPod 5K, weighs just over one pound and measures 15.2 inches in height.
The 1K, 3K, and 5K are available with or without a ball head (Arca Swiss compatible) — personally, I added my own ball head (Benro IN00). The 325 and 500 models have a ball head built-in — given their diminutive size, there was not much of an option.
These tripods are useful for so many different things and I guarantee I have only considered a fraction of their potential uses. Naturally, they make excellent table-top tripods or if you need to position your camera very close to the ground. I have used the 5K with a Nikon Z7 and 24-70mm lens without any problems (rated load capacity is 11 pounds).
The headlining feature is the legs of the GorillaPods — they’re flexible, so you can bend and twist them in any direction. This allows the tripod to conform to uneven surfaces and even wrap around posts, polls, fence railing, and so on. Recently, I used mine to wrap around the branch of a tree while fitted with a Blackmagic Pocket 6K — this allowed us to get a perfect angle downward without the need to use heavy and cumbersome equipment.
The possibilities are essentially endless and with the 5K version clocking in at just over $100, there are a lot of reasons you should consider one for your kit. It won’t replace a regular tripod, nor will it be appropriate most of the time, but in those situations where it excels, you’ll probably fall in love.
The Best Tripod System for Video Under $2,000: Sachtler Ace XL with flowtech 75
Sachtler is one of the most revered names in the film and video industry when it comes to top-of-the-line support — their tripods and fluid heads are regularly considered among the best options on the market, especially for those who don’t have eight grand to shell out for a Miller or Cartoni system. The company has perpetually been at the forefront of tripod technology and in partnership with Vinten, they launched the highly venerated Sachtler Ace XL with flowtech 75 tripod in 2017.
I have used the Sachtler flowtech tripods several times and I cannot dispute their claims — the implementation of a single release lever for each leg was an earth-shattering experience for me. With a vast majority of tripods, each section of each leg has its own lock — this means you must unlock, extend the section, lock, and then move on to the next section. Rinse and repeat for the other two legs. It is honestly one of my least favorite things to do as a DP.
Sachtler’s flowtech uses a single lever at the top to lock/unlock the sections of each leg. Thanks to their precision engineering, the legs will smoothly extend themselves once you unlock them — no need to fiddle around and do it yourself.
Furthermore, by borrowing a common design from stills tripods, the flowtech can achieve a minimum height of just 10 inches without the mid-level spreader. All you need to do is slide a hinge locking mechanism to switch the legs into a three-stop position. If you’re like me and hate messing with mid or ground-level spreaders, this is a godsend. The best part? Even without the spreader, the entire setup is rock solid.
There are other nice touches — like magnets that hold the collapsed and folded legs together so that they don’t separate while you’re carrying them. Gone are the days of elastic cords to prevent such irritants.
All in all, if you want the best there is to offer as far as a cinema-level tripod paired with an amazing fluid head — and don’t want to shell out more than $2,000, these are the ones to get.
It’s worth noting that if you want to purchase the flowtech 75 tripod legs themselves without the Ace XL head, you can do — they’re sold under the name Vinten Flowtech 75 Carbon Fiber Tripod. You can save some money this way if you want to choose your own fluid head or already have one.
The Best Budget Tripod for Video: Benro A373T
I purchased a Benro A373T in a pinch when I needed a second tripod for a B-cam and didn’t want to spend a ton of money. I was blown away when I used it — build quality, rigidity, sturdiness, and ease of use were all far beyond what I anticipated. It has a rated load capacity of up to 55 pounds and I have no reason to disbelieve it. It was more than enough for an Arri Alexa Classic (15 pounds) fitted with an Angeniuex cinema zoom lens, plus the litany of necessary accessories.
I have simply never seen this level of quality in a roughly $200 tripod. This could easily cost $500, and I wouldn’t feel ripped off.
It is a 75mm bowl design, however, if you have a flat-base head as I did, you can purchase a half-ball adapter for about $50 — I purchased the Benro BL75. There is also a 100mm bowl version (Benro A474T) should you need that.
While the one recommended here is aluminum, there is also a carbon fiber version (Benro C373T) for a little over twice the price. Carbon fiber is less important to me for video work than it is for photography, so I went with the aluminum — but both options are there for you (and if money were no object, I would always go for carbon fiber, but unfortunately it is an object for me).
