It all depends. There are many brands of carbon fiber tripods and they're all over the map in terms of price and quality of build. For large format work you want something solid. For routine usage I really prefers Ries wooden tripods. But for longhaul backpacking, carbon fiber is more realistic because it's so much lighter weight. For 4x5 usage I have a modified original Gitzo Reporter CF - the first commercial CF ever, I believe. It's more solidly built than the thinner-ply current Gitzo equivalent - which I have seen outright snap to pieces in the mountains! A friend learned that the hard way. Just because it's an expensive Gitzo doesn't mean it can't break. But CF is easier to handle in the cold than metal. And the issue is not so much the cold per se as some accident deeply scratching or denting the tubes, creating a weak point.
I learned a terrible lesson about that fact a few years ago when I was furnishing special fabrication equipment to the America's Cup racing teams. They showed me all kinds of samples of carbon fiber, including the Kevlar-reinforced custom version for their ultra-light racing yachts, or essentially catamarans. They were down to 2-ply for their masts and booms, which had tremendous tensile strength, but were very susceptible to dents. One of the team members who often picked up supplies, who was also an Olympic athlete, drowned under a sail the next day after I last spoke to him, when it snapped and fell during racing practice. Now the rules have changed, and all the racing yachts have to have a certain minimum weight and thicker component build.
My bigger CF, suitable for 8x10, is in fact one of the largest 2-ply Feisol models. I'm not worried about it because I'm not doing any of the extreme types of mountain travel as in my younger years, and mostly do 8x10 or big MF tele work on dayhikes, and then, mostly with the Ries wooden tripod. So I anticipate my Feisol outliving me. The smaller Gitzo is 3-ply and has already gone through thousands of miles of mountain travel without issue. Both have been modified for a platform top. Center columns are worthless for view camera applications.
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