When I gave Ryan his birthday gift, his first Macro lens, he played with it for a little while, quickly realizing that in order to take great macro shots we were going to need a more flexible tripod.

So, the next day he went to our local camera shop to check out tripods, with a plan to buy a small lightweight tripod that could be easily set up close to the ground.

This is what he ended up with:

A Manfrotto tripod, that has an adjustable camera mount arm that allows you to move the camera to the left or right of the tripod.

We took advantage of this feature when shooting the beach from the balcony of our condo in Myrtle Beach.  We used the stability of the tripod and the adjustable arm to take pictures, including 30 second night-time exposures, down the beach with the camera over the balcony railing!

The other awesome thing about it is that the legs will lay flat, meaning you could use the tripod’s stability with the camera an inch from the ground! The next time I am set up to take pictures of flowers or bugs, I will photograph the set up to show you. It is cool!

A Manfrotto tripod ball head, an absolutely necessary tripod accessory!  This head allows you to rotate the camera in basically any direction.  You can follow a bird across the sky while the camera is on the tripod with ease!

He also got a quick release tripod mount for the camera, no more time wasted screwing the camera on each time!

This set up is amazing!

PS- We do love Manfrotto, we also have a Manfrotto monopod that is super light weight and doubles as a walking stick when not in use.  AND, we have had NO problem taking the monopod through the airport as a carry on! We attach it to the outside of our camera bag and take it right through security!

If you have any intention of ever getting into Macro or wildlife photography this tripod is a must have!

We have only had it for a little over a week and it has allowed us to take photographs that we never could have by holding the camera in our hands or with our heavy traditional tripod.

No, we are not endorsed by Manfrotto. I wish we were! We would be great Manfrotto sales people