Strong, very light, smooth, beautifully made. A great match for the Arca B-1.

None, especially if you get it at the right price.

I heard how great this tripod was supposed to be, but turned my back on it because 1)It is expensive 2)I don''t like twist-lock legs. Well, I found a place where I could get one for about $350 (Robert White in UK), so I decided to get one. I also ordered an Arca-Swiss B1/QR, and the whole thing came to about $700 plus about $75 for shipping and duties. Not a bad price for such great gear. Anyway, I love the new setup. Solid as a rock, smooth and silky in operation, easy to set up, very light. The twist-locks are actually very quick and easy to use, require very little torque. Just wonderful. I will never go back to a metal tripod. I use the plates from Really Right Stuff, and I just love to use my tripod. I keep it with me wherever I go. If I need a more compact tripod, I may consider the 1228 with 4 leg sections. Not as sturdy as the 1227, but it will fit inside a carry-on bag. Another recommendation: I bought some cheap pipe insultation from Home Depot and cut it to fit over the top leg section. Makes it easier to carry the pod, with camera and lens attached, over your shoulder.

Customer Service

Haven''t needed.

Similar Products Used:

Bogen/Manfrotto tripods.

Solid, Stable, Relatively Light Weight, sturdy

None

I am absolute happy with it when I taking my landscape and nature photos. It is very solid and sturdy. The price is reasonable to me if I could buy it as my first tripod instead of the other consumer graded tripods which are stored in the storeroom. It costs HKD2,500 (USD300+) in Hong Kong.

Customer Service

N/A

Similar Products Used:

Many consumer graded tripod

light, strong, cool-looking, instant recognition as a "serious" photographer

Price. Wallet is $500 lighter. No srew attachment for carrying strap.

Love it. Use it with Arca-Swiss B1 Q/R to get an unbeatable 5 lb. setup. Add Really Right Stuff plates and the system is rock-solid. Price is a bummer -- $900 for this setup. But I got over it. The twist legs take a bit getting used to as compared to the Bogen's latches. Since the tripod doesn't have a screw-in anchor attachment for a carrying strap, I used some 1" thick gold-colored nylon marine supplies rope and made two slip-knots. Works well. Sometimes the tripod can be "too light" in some windy conditions, so I use Bogen's tripod apron and put stuff in it to weigh down the tripod.

Customer Service

didn't try

Similar Products Used:

none

Weight, stability, warranty

Price

This is a great tripod, easy to carry, less struggle with the releases than standard Gitzo's, but the price point is prohibitative. Paired with a Linhoff ball head, flexible enough for 35 and med.

Customer Service

NA

Similar Products Used:

Gitzo Studex

Light and sturdy.

Not as yet.

It is very expensive, but a good, sturdy, lightweight product. For those of us that have a hard time lugging heavy equipment, it is a necessity.

Customer Service

NA

Similar Products Used:

Various Bogen and Velbon tripods. The Velbon were too light and breakable. The Bogen were too heavy.

very elegant and clean design, compared to velbon and bogen equilvalent. Light weight is simply amazing, now I suspect my ballhead (bogen 3435) is heavier than the tripod. locks not as tough to operate as I thought (in MK 2 version.)

may be inconsitent from sample to sample, I have previously returned two. Problems, one with two not-so-smooth legs, another one with "thin walls" that you could actually feel the "rings". Make sure to check before you buy, legs should feel very smooth.

For those who thinks saving 2 pounds (which seems like 20 to me when hiking)is worth half a thousand and for those who simply like to feel the smoothness of the tripod legs.

Customer Service

Pretty good. I exchanged my second sample at a photo show. Prompt and no question asked.

Similar Products Used:

bogen 3021 (sturdy but really heavy), cullman magic 2 (broke after a fall)

VERY light, sturdy and well made.

price!

If you hike & backpack, worth every penny.

Customer Service

none so far

Similar Products Used:

bogen 3021

Lighter, more rigid, and better damping than an aluminum tripod. Also easier to hold in cold weather, since it does not conduct heat and won't freeze your hands off. It is extremely quick to set up and tear down and to nail the legs in place you hardly have to put any torque on the controls, so it is easy to untwist them and collapse the tripod in a hurry.

Lighter than an aluminum tripod. Expense is not a weakness, since the tripod is more important in the photographic process than your camera body.

Great for making rock solid photos out in the wilderness. I'd like to comment on the proper ball head for this tripod. There is an opinion expressed in the Really Right Stuff catalog that the Arca-Swiss B1 ballhead makes the 1227 top heavy and unsuitable for that tripod. But by the time you put Brian's B2-Pro clamp onto his recommended Linhof Profi II, you have a combination that weighs 23.8 ounces, not the 20.8 ounces he quotes in his catalog. Meanwhile the Arca-Swiss weighs in at 26.3 ounces, which means that the B1 weighs only 9.5% more than the Profi II. Add in the 52 ounces that the 1227 tripod weighs and the difference is only 3.3%, hardly grounds for saying the B1/1227 makes for a top-heavy combination and the Profi II/1227 does not. It's top heavy with either ball, but so what? It is true that the base of the B1 is larger than the top of the 1227 center column post, but only by less than a quarter of an inch! It looks just fine on the 1227!

I was driven to try out a B1 in place of the Profi II because the Profi II just doesn't have the muscle to hold a Nikon F100 with 32 ounce lens (without tripod collar) or 48 ounce lens (with tripod collar). You practically have to break your fingers turning the knob to stop the Profi II from creeping with the lens only slightly off the horizontal. Hardly any torque at all is needed to lock the B1 down as solid as a single chunk of steel with lenses that weighty attached to the camera body. The price of the Profi II + B2-Pro clamp runs about $300, the B1 $400. The Profi II is rated at 17.6 pounds holding capacity, the B1 90 pounds. If you're spending that much anyhow, $100 more is chicken feed when you consider the enormous increment in performance that you get, with trivial increase in weight (2.5 ounces).

(I don't mean any of this to cast aspersions on Brian of Really Right Stuff. I can't count the number of times he has helped me out, including giving me verbal instructions on how to actually adjust that B1 ball (the instructions that come with it are difficult to understand). He is a very sincere, helpful, and hard working person, whom we should all be grateful for.)

Customer Service

I had to send a previous Gitzo in for service and it took two months to get it back. It's because I didn't dry it out after a wet excursion. Dry it out when you get it back in out of the rain!

Similar Products Used:

None

Solid, Stable, Light Weight, Sturdy, Rigid...
and many more, oh, great looking.....

The only one, expensive, but worth every penny.

I know you can buy it from mail order for only $605. (B&H, Camera World...etc..) But my "bad" habit is that I have to try out personally before I buy it. Comparing with Manfrotto and Slik carbon tripod, I even didn't want to look them again after I tried Gitzo G1227. G1228 is 4-sections, more expensive, but I think 3 sections let me move faster when I shoot wildlifes and macro.
God, I really enjoy this tripod. $720 is not expensive, not at all.........
After when I got so many great shots easily using this gem.

Customer Service

Don't need to try...
Lifetime warranty, maybe I'll try 10 years later.

Similar Products Used:

Gitzo G1228, Manfrotto and Slik carbon tripods. And many other aluminum tripods.

Very light, solid, adjustable leg angle, short center column available for low shots

Expensive

A perfect tripod for travel - it's small, light.It can hold a fair bit of weight. I use this tripod with Gitzo G1276M ball head, it is still rock solid when shooting vertical with my Nikon F5 +80-200mm f/2.8 AF-S +SB-28 !!!. If you're looking for a light and strong tripod.
This is the one for you.

Customer Service

Not yet

Similar Products Used:

Manfrotto