A couple of months ago, I received an email from Scott at a company called Trek-Tech. Scott said that he loved the site and what we were building with Faded & Blurred (and this was the 1.0 site!). He went on to say that Trek-Tech would like to be involved somehow with us. I had never heard of Trek-Tech, so I went to their site to do a bit of research. As it turns out, Trek-Tech makes tripods and monopods…and they looked pretty cool. I read the specs, watched the demo videos and then called Frank and Nikki to tell them about it. We were thrilled at our first unsolicited potential sponsor and thought that the products looked like a great match for our members, so we wrote back to Scott and told him we'd love to talk about what they had in mind. A couple weeks later a small package arrived from Trek-Tech.
Inside the box was Trek-Tech's version of a table-top tripod, appropriately called, the T-Pod. The first thing I noticed about the T-Pod after handling it for a few minutes is that for such a small piece of gear, the little thing is built like a tank. Made primarily of aluminum (the locking collar is high-impact plastic and the legs have protective rubber feet) the unit breaks down and stows away into it's own included carry bag. At first glance, it may look like any other table-top tripod, but there are a couple of innovative features that really set this product apart from the competition. The first great feature is the ball head, which is unusual for this class of product. The ball head gives you the same type of positioning flexibility as a full size tripod ball head. Topping off the ball head is, in my opinion, the coolest feature of the T-Pod, and is a trademark feature on Trek-Tech's monopods (such as the Trek Pod GO Pro, which we'll be reviewing soon). Trek-Tech calls it the MagMount STAR (Square Tooth Anti Rotation) but I call it suhweet!. Basically, it's a quick release that uses a combination of a rare earth magnet and a specially designed cam lock system to hold your camera snug to the ball head, while at the same time allowing you to quickly remove and reattach the camera to the tripod.
As an added safety measure, there's a swing arm that snaps around the cams both top and bottom. As if that weren't cool enough, the main tube can be removed from the base and attached to your existing tripod to get you a bit more lift, or you can attach the MagMount ball head directly to the legs and use the T-Pod as a ground level tripod. The T-Pod ships with two MagMount connectors, one for DSLR and one for point & shoot. Awesome!
I've had the chance to shoot quite a bit with the T-Pod and I absolutely love it. I've used it with a D90, battery grip and a Tokina 50-135 f/2.8 (a pretty heavy lens) and it was rock solid. It also performed perfectly saddled with a D300, battery grip and 60mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor. I'm really looking forward to using the T-Pod and the D300's built in intervalometer to record some time-lapse cloud sequences. As I mentioned earlier, I really love this little product for the type of shooting I do. A lot. It may be regarded as more of a specialized piece of gear, but at only $49.99 retail, it's really a no brainer to add to your kit. Highly Recommended
More information about Trek-Tech products is available on the Trek-Tech site.
UPDATE: After I wrote this review, I spoke to Jim, the CEO of Trek-Tech. He told me that they are working with BlackRapid (you know, the R-Strap people) on an adapter for the R-Strap that will allow you to mount your camera to the Trek-Tech MagMount STAR without having to swap connectors. We'll try to get one to review when they are available...stay tuned!
UPDATE #2: We are very pleased to welcome Trek-Tech as a Faded & Blurred partner. Use the Trek-Tech banner below or in the sidebar to get 25% off Trek-Tech products!
