Joby comes with the revolutionary, very reasonably priced, Gorillapod, which allows you take pictures in a way you could never before. You can mount this tripod (yes, it’s a tripod, in case you were wondering) to literally, almost anything. Hang it from a tree branch, a light pole, put it on some rocks or simply on the ground for great perspectives or neat close-ups, … the possibilities are endless. Hell, you can even mount it to your dog and view life through his/her eyes (- well, more from its back, actually).

The Gorillapod comes in 3 sizes.
There’s the standard Gorillapod Original, which with it’s size of 150×30x30mm (5.9×1.2×1.2in) fits right in your pocket and is great if you’re using a compact digital. They recently even released color versions of this one.
Next in row is the Gorillapod SLR, slightly bigger, 250×50x50mm (9.8×2x2in), but will support your SLR or video cam up to a weight of 165g (5.8oz).
And finally, the Gorillapod SLR-ZOOM, 250×50x50mm (9.8×2.4×2.4in), supports weights up to 241g (8.5oz) and let’s you use your own tripod heads.

I got myself a SLR-ZOOM, mostly because of the support for extra weight, and my photography will never be the same again. Since I don’t owe a car, most of my travels have to happen by bus or train, so I find myself leaving my normal tripod at home most of the time. The less bags, the better. The Gorillapod on the other hand, fits easily in my backpack. So now when I go shooting, I’ve always got a tripod handy without the hustle of an extra bag, which I might not even need.

It might take a bit of practice, but once you’ve got it figured out a bit, it’s great. I recently shot the interior of a fitness center, only using this little thing, resulting in a nice variation of original angles and sharp pictures at a place where the light conditions could have been a lot better.

Happy New Year btw!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 1st, 2008 at 7:25 pm and is filed under Product Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.