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Peak Design Professional Tripod: two-minute evaluate
Peak Design’s tripods have a few distinctive design options. One is the leg design, which isn’t tubular however has a six-sided cross part with an internal edge that matches straight up towards the middle column, with no gaps. The middle column is thinner than most but additionally has a six-sided cross part for the legs to suit neatly towards the legs when folded. This non-tubular building does appear to offer each the legs and the middle column uncommon stiffness.
The opposite distinctive function is a low-profile ball head with no protruding locking nut. As an alternative, it’s clamped with a rotating collar, and one other, simply above locks and releases the compact Arca Swiss suitable digicam plate.
This low profile head design signifies that the unique Peak Design journey tripod doesn’t must have its legs rotated 180 levels from their folded place earlier than you should utilize it. The low top of the ball head means which you could merely fold the legs in and pack it away with none sophisticated manoeuvers.
These design options made the unique Peak Design Journey tripod very completely different to anything. Now Peak Design has taken those self same design ideas and scaled them up right into a Professional model designed for severe skilled use.
Actually, there’s not one Professional tripod however three. The common Professional tripod is the one I spent most time with for this evaluate, however I additionally bought to check out the Professional Lite and Professional Tall variants. The Professional Lite is nearly the identical top and folded size of the common Professional Tripod, however has a lighter building for simpler portability. The Tall model has longer leg sections and may even attain eye degree for tall folks with none heart column extension – it exceeded my eye degree!
The brand new Professional tripods aren’t simply larger and extra substantial than the unique Journey Tripod – they’ve a brand new Professional ball head that’s bigger and extra substantial than the unique, plus it has a neat ‘inverted’ design in order that the pan axis is above the ball not under it. This implies which you could degree the pan axis for panning pictures and panoramas with out having to fiddle round with the leg lengths. It’s not an enormous vary of adjustment but it surely is likely to be all you want.
For extra excessive pan axis changes, or if lots of your work is video, Peak Design has you coated. There are two new ‘mods’ to go along with these tripods: one tilt head for video work, and the opposite a leveling bowl which you swap out with the usual heart column, and which has a daily head attachment screw so that you could use your favourite video head if you wish to.
I really like the unique Peak Design Journey Tripod, so do the brand new Professional tripods go away me simply as impressed? Sure! It’s, actually, similar to utilizing scaled up variations of the Journey Tripod. The carbon fiber legs really feel simply as easy and heat to the contact, the leg clamps are simply as fast and constructive, and since these Professional tripods have 4 leg sections slightly than 5, they’re slightly faster to arrange.
The brand new Professional ball head is terrific. It’s huge and chunky, it locks tight and it doesn’t add a complete lot to the tripod’s top whenever you’re packing away. As earlier than, there aren’t any protruding knobs or levers to get in the way in which both.
Peak Design’s use of a rotating collar to lock the QR plate does take slightly getting used to. The top has two collars in shut proximity and at first it may be a battle to recollect which does what and the way they work.
The brand new Professional head, although, feels completely rock strong, and it’s with the pan and tilt mod that it will get actually intelligent. All you might want to do is take out the common Arca Swiss plate and slot within the pan and tilt add-on for a correct fluid pan and tilt motion.
There’s an extending panning deal with which is stowed towards the aspect of the pinnacle by way of a magnet (Peak Design loves magnets) and may be shortly screwed into the pinnacle prepared to be used. It appears like a kludge, with one head mounted on high of one other, but it surely completely isn’t. It appears to be like prefer it was made to work this manner, and feels prefer it too. The lean axis is sprung, by the way in which, so for those who use an extended digicam plate you must have the ability to steadiness it up pretty nicely for gentle and managed tilt actions.
The middle columns on these tripods are longer than the one within the unique Journey Tripod, which is beneficial, however regardless that they’re mounted with a small-looking locking knob, they lock down actually tight and with no flex.
You may as well get spiked ft however these are an elective additional, nor does it appear to be Peak Design features a cellphone clamp with these tripods, in order that will probably be a paid additional too. It type of is smart as a result of these Professional tripods are overengineered for cellphone use anyway. In the event you do get the cellphone mount, it is going to nonetheless slide up into the bottom of the middle column for storage. Right here, Peak Design has caught with its barely sophisticated pull-and-twist hook launch which is straightforward whenever you’ve realized the way it works however may be annoying at first.
In order that’s a fast tour of the Peak Design Professional Tripods, however which is the most effective one to get? That’s fairly tough as a result of they’re considerably comparable, each in dimension and worth. The usual Professional tripod is predicted to promote for $899.95 when it goes totally on sale in November 2025, the lighter Professional Lite will probably be $799.95 and the Professional Tall will probably be $999.95. I have not seen costs for the UK or Australia but.
Personally, I wouldn’t go for the Professional Lite. I can perceive the reasoning – it’s a barely lighter, barely cheaper different to the common Professional mannequin – but it surely’s not loads smaller and I feel I’d slightly simply pay the additional for the thicker legs of the Professional mannequin. The Professional Tall is fascinating, although. If I used to be 6ft tall and didn’t like utilizing heart columns, I’d go for this one. It’s undoubtedly longer when packed away, however all of those tripods are too lengthy to suit inside a backpack anyway and would find yourself strapped to the surface. Moreover, for these occasions whenever you didn’t want the additional top you might simply prolong three leg sections not 4, for much more stability.
Peak Design Professional Tripods: key specs
| Header Cell – Column 0 |
Professional Lite |
Professional |
Professional Tall |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Packed size |
48.8cm |
50.1cm |
58.1cm |
|
Packed diameter |
8.5cm |
9.3cm |
9.3cm |
|
Max top, heart column down |
133.2cm |
138.0cm |
162.0cm |
|
Max top, heart column up |
162.5cm |
168.4cm |
197.4cm |
|
Min top (low mode) |
15.8cm |
15.9cm |
17.3cm |
|
Weight |
3.74lbs / 1.7kg |
4.19lbs / 1.9kg |
4.4lbs / 2.0kg |
|
Max payload |
15.9kg |
18.1kg |
18.1kg |
|
Head |
Built-in Professional Ball Head |
Built-in Professional Ball Head |
Built-in Professional Ball Head |
|
Materials |
Carbon fiber |
Carbon fiber |
Carbon fiber |
|
Leg sections |
4 |
4 |
4 |
Peak Design Professional Tripods worth and availability
The Peak Design Professional Tripods launch on Kickstarter on July 17 2025 however are anticipated to go on basic sale in November 2025. The Professional Lite tripod has an anticipated worth of $799.95, the Professional tripod will probably be $899.99 and the Professional Tall will promote for $999.99.
The Tilt Mod and Professional Leveling Base will probably be offered individually and we’re at present ready for worth data on these, however we’re advised the choice spiked ft will promote for $49.95.
Peak Design Professional Tripods: Additionally think about
Ought to I purchase a Peak Design Professional Tripod?
Purchase it if…
Do not buy it if…
How I examined the Peak Design Professional Tripods
- Operational pace and effectivity
- Stiffness and rigidity
- Ball head operation
- Effectiveness of add-ons
I had simply two weeks to check out the Peak Design Professional tripods as a result of mortgage shares have been in brief provide and shared between many alternative reviewers. Nevertheless, I do know the unique Peak Design Journey Tripod very nicely and I evaluate tripods as a part of my work, so I already had an inventory of what I used to be in search of and anticipated from these new Professional tripods.
I notably needed to check the pace and ease of deployment and was happy to search out it was simply as slick as with the unique Journey Tripod however faster, because of the 4-section legs and bigger leg clamps. I additionally needed to test if the superb stiffness of the unique Journey Tripod had scaled as much as these new, larger sizes, and it has. I don’t keep in mind some other tripods I’ve examined with extra torsional rigidity and lack of leg flex than these.
I used to be additionally eager to test how the brand new Professional Ball Head labored. The unique was good however fairly small and fiddly. This one is significantly better. Not solely does it clamp tighter and maintain heavier hundreds higher, the inverted ball design makes levelling the digicam for panning pictures a lot simpler.
Lastly, I spent a while attempting out the Tilt Mod and Professional Leveling Base and got here away impressed. The Tilt Mod fixes so nicely to the Professional Ball Head that they really feel like a single (very easy) unit and the Professional Leveling Base took a minute or so to swap out with the common column however allows you to use your personal tripod head.
First reviewed June 2025