Hi, I'm Dustin with OPT.
Today we're going to go over the Radian Carbon Fiber Tripod. So the first thing you'll notice
is it does come with a carry bag with a shoulder harness. We wanted something we knew this would
be going out into the field with photographers, so we wanted to provide a carry case to get it there.
We knew that we wanted an a really lightweight portable you know tripod that could be
brought anywhere with photographers whether it's for standard photography
or for astrophotography and so the entire unit is carbon fiber.
The second thing was to get it from this size to this size we wanted oversized grips
so that you can find this in the dark and not accidentally reach for the wrong grip
and adjust or even drop the tripod.
The next thing we needed to add was when you're looking to polar align your systems and get your
mount set up we wanted there to be a way to level the mount easily so there's a built-in
bubble level right at the top. I think the coolest thing about this tripod is probably
these quick release plates and this is the thing that really separates it from other tripods.
So with astrophotography you often end up switching between ball heads tracking mounts and
then even go to mounts, so we wanted a way to do that quickly and that's what these extra dovetails
are for. You can attach these to a system and just leave it there so that it's always ready to go and
then if you want to switch to your ball head you literally just grab the tripod and click it in,
you're ready to go lock down the clutch, and you're ready to start imaging.
So same thing here it's a quick release button on the bottom you push that button
and you can pull that out and switch to something else even a full-size mount so this mount has a
50-pound capacity this tripod is 55 pounds and so you can grab the mount and again click it right in
get rough polar alignment lock down the clutch and you're ready to go.
One more problem we saw that might come in with astrophotography is when you have a mount like
this you have a lot of cables and because the mount moves around those cables tend to drag.
We didn't want there to be anything on the tripod that could accidentally get those cables snagged,
so we built a clutch into the clutch so that you could pull it
and move it out of the way so that there's no cable snag potential there with anything
on the tripod. You'll see it's completely smooth all the way around and that's why that's there.
Te next piece we knew was if you're going to be using a mount something this big
you might have to counterweight the bottom of the mount because if the wind blows anything like that
it could tend to be top heavy because these are extremely lightweight mounts.
And so we built in a screw system on the bottom of the dovetails
that you can add into the bottom - just tighten them on and then you can hang counterweights from
the bottom including just your camera bag if you're out in the desert or in the field
to keep your camera bag off the ground it also serves as a counterweight system to your tripod.
And then on the back end because your north facing leg will have your counterweights in the front.
you can also throw hook in the back we put a 3 8 slot in the back of these tripods
right there so that you can counterweight the back as well
with the same hook to counterweight the the front of the tripod having all the weight.
Vibration can become a real issue with long exposures and so what we did is
we put hardened rubber feet at the bottoms of the tripod standard so that when you're
imaging on concrete which most people do, you have vibration suppression built into the tripod.
But if you're going to be in grass you won't want those rubber feet so it comes
in the case with these grass feet instead which are spikes with 3/8 screws to go
right into the bottom of the tripod so that this will work in any environment.
The next piece of this is this leg with the grip on it isn't just a grip for carrying
it around it's actually a mono-pod so if you're going to go out hiking or you want
to bring your system but you don't want to bring the entire tripod or the weight of it
you can pull this off and it has a 3/8 head just like all of the dovetails
so that you can bring this, have an extended mono-pod for hiking or going out and doing
photography on the run without having to bring the entire system with you.
So the last piece of this is the adjustable legs for in other environments when you're not doing
astrophotography if you want to do traditional photography they are multi-positional so that
you can get different angles or even just get the tripod down lower if you're trying
to do macro photography or just get a lower shot for landscapes or whatever the purpose.
So that's the radiant carbon fiber tripod this is something we're extremely excited
about. We really feel like this tripod solves a lot of problems especially for the photographer
looking for a portable system something to bring out into the field with them
and go backpacking and even if you're doing traditional photography
this is something that can solve a lot of problems for photographers.
So if you want to know more about this tripod check out OPTcorp.com or give us a call we're
happy to help you and make sure you're successful in the hobby. Thanks for checking it out!