Benro C-027 Carbon Fiber Tripod

[Peter von Gaza]

I just received my Benro C-027 carbon fiber tripod from B&H and I am impressed!!! This tripod cost $130 (!!!!). It has 3 legs and sets up to 45" and 54" extended. Extended it is ROCK SOLID. The workmanship on the tripod looks excellent, just as good as my old gitzo (G 120) that it is replacing. This tripod is currently special order (got mine in under two weeks to Canada) and I bet it soon disappears as it is being re-branded as Induro and will undoubtedly go up in price.

I'm an ultralight weight 4x5 user and go to extremes in keeping things light (many day hikes or skis to get to my areas of interest). I use a Toho FC-mini (modified for slight movements) and a Mamiya 7, so this tripod is perfect. For a ballhead I'll use either a RRS bh-25 (6.5 oz) or a Markins Q3 (13.5 oz). For those with bigger cameras and monster ballheads this tripod is a joke. But for those that are trying to keep things very light and doing longish backpacking trips, you might want to take a look.

I'm probably alone in using a tripod this light for 4x5 work, but thought someone else might be interested... Sometimes less is maybe enough?

Peter

[Greg Lockrey]

Do you have to kneel to see through the viewfinder? At 54", that's pretty short.

[Bob Salomon]

"It has 3 legs "

That is always good in a tripod.

[Peter von Gaza]

<< Do you have to kneel to see through the viewfinder? At 54", that's pretty short.

I'm 6' 2"" and with a tripod extended to 54" I have to hunch down a bit. But I have never found that a problem. When it gets windy I would lower the extension on my old tripod and the hunching would get a little more pronounced. I suppose the "hunching" would get old if you are the type that fiddles with camera movements for extended periods of time. My setups are always pretty fast.

[Jay W]

Thanks for the heads up. I've been looking for a smaller tripod (I have a 1227), particularly for my medium format setup (w/ waist level finder), but I'm betting this will make a nice hiking 4x5 tripod. Reichman had a pretty good writeup on the Induro, so $140 sounds cheap in comparison to the Gitzo.

Jay W

[squiress]

Benro isn't well liked by some because it's a pretty good copy of Gitzo (as in alleged IP theft). I did a teardown of both a C127 and a C328n6 over on the www.photography-on-the.net group and found the similarities were more than superficial. About the only difference I came up with was that the Benros are aluminum alloy and Gitzos are magnesium. I have been very pleased by both of mine. The C128 holds my Toyo 45AX just fine on a Benro ball mount (I just shifted to a Weifeng Fancier ball mount that seems a little more solid). I had been using a Manfrotto 3063 with my Wehman 8x10 on the C328n6, but my new Arca Swiss B2 3-way arrives today on the Fedex truck :-)
That on the C328n6 should be really nice.

BH doesn't have new stock on Benro I don't think. They do not have the new n6 tripods AFAIK. MAC is selling Induro and seem like nice folk, but for the prices they want you might as well go get a Gitzo, IMHO.

Stew

[David Karp]

Are the Gitzos patented? Didn't Nikon start by building a camera inspired by (copying) Contax? And Canon Leica?

[squiress]

Are the Gitzos patented? Didn't Nikon start by building a camera inspired by (copying) Contax? And Canon Leica?

In that group I didn't raise the IP question, others did. I don't think there are any legal actions ongoing or that have been reported. I am quite sure that Gitzo would have patented whatever they consider innovative. And yes, big Japanese camera companies started (pretty well documented, I think) by making copies of German designs (post WWII). They were allies, so not too sure of how much technology transfer occurred as a result of that.

IP issue wasn't the thing here. These are nice tripods that are quickly climbing in price as they get more consistently made and add features.

Stew