Sony VCTR640 Lightweight Tripod for DSCV1/P41/W1/P93/P73/P92/P100/P150/F88/F828 Digital Cameras

When I was shopping for this, one review caught my eye saying this tripod was "mostly metal." That claim, along with the light weight in the description, were the two things that sold me on the model.

Well, NEITHER ARE TRUE. This thing is indeed mostly plastic made to look like black metal. Apparently, this fooled the other reviewer, but not me. The only metal I found on the whole thing were the bars of the legs themselves, and the bar of the swivel handle. Every single other part of this thing is black plastic. All of the hinges and joints are plastic. The leg braces are plastic. The height crank is plastic (yikes!). Even the center tube is PLASTIC. Overall, it looks nice, I'll give them that; but please know that you are NOT getting a "mostly metal" tripod here. No way.

Now, that by itself wouldn't be too bad, except that you'd expect something that's nearly all plastic to be much lighter - it isn't. The part of the description that reads:

Product Dimensions: 22.3 x 5 x 4.9 inches ; 1 pounds

..is WRONG. Maybe this thing weighs 1 pound on the moon, but it's much heavier where I'll be using it, here on earth. It is, indeed, much closer to it's described shipping weight:

Shipping Weight: 4 pounds

Why the large discrepancy? Who know? Sloppiness on Amazon's part, I guess. At any rate, the weight was key for me, and there were several tripods lighter than 4 lbs which I passed up. I guess I should have trusted my instincts when they told me this was too good to be true.

Anyway, if I'm going to buy a plastic tripod, I want it to be much lighter than 4 lbs.

Great Tripod, is ideal for camcorders, but I use with my H9 DSC and works perfectly. very reliable and very light!

Great product for the money. Seems well made, and I expect it will hold up well and last. Nice and stable, too. My still photos are way sharper when I use the tripod.

I was looking for a tripod for my Sony Handycam. This tripod is great it has a lot of features and I was scared of the quality but knowing it was coming from sony was more of a relief for me. Sony didn't prove me wrong in their standards and for the price this tripod is definitely worth it if you want a tripod that does the job. I read one review and someone says that the tripod doesn't go that high, but I think it goes very high and you can adjust it to the height you want it at. My only issue with it is that I wish it came with a cover or bag for it, and I would have paid a couple more bucks for it, so for the price I can't really complain. Overall I would definitely reccomend this tripod.

I was very happy with this tripod from Sony. It was exactly what I was looking for in regards to quality and price. Easy to use, lightweight and stylish sum it up.