ePod Diversity [Review]

A Post By: Sime

A brief review of the ePod Diversity light studio tripod and laptop tray from Studio-Flash.com by Simon Pollock

If you’re going to place your laptop and camera on a tripod, you want it to be stable, you want it to be functional and you certainly don’t want it to fall over and smash the life out of your pride and joy / tools of the trade, right?

Meet the ePod Diversity from www.studio-flash.com

Weighing in at just under 3kg with the ball head, and able to easily hold up to 8kg of camera and laptop, the ePod isn’t a “carry around” tripod, it’s a studio tripod and a good solid one at that! Now, I’m not a studio photographer by any stretch of the imagination, and I’ve only used a tethered setup a couple of times – once when I was doing some portraits for the company that I worked for, and totally forgot to bring my memory cards – stupid! and another time, just for fun. But having to keep your camera and laptop together and keep it all stable and still, I found that interesting.

You’ll note that’s not my set-up above, it’s Danny’s.. you all know I break out in a itchy red mess when I use Nikon (breath people, it’s a joke!) So, the ePod has a working height without the ball head of 0cm – 163cm and the Monopod working height is 54cm – 135cm, again, without the ball head which adds about 8cm

The tripod has three section legs that bend in many (two) directions and are finished with rubber feet and / or spikes, depending upon what you’re in to! The legs can be set so you’re shooting from as good as on the deck, flat, lying down… OK, so you have most of the spec now, you get what this tripod is used for, you’ve seen a couple of pictures – but is it any good?

Well, The first thing you don’t want your tripod doing is sliding down / over when you stick your kit on the top… So, what was the first thing I did when I took it out of the box? I slid down it like a crazy, Canon shooting pole dancer! Did it move? NO, was it graceful… certainly not! Sturdy it was, yes. A very solid piece of kit with a set of spirit levels built in, the ePod diversity is a very well built bit of kit. Easy to adjust and, for some crazy reason, has a compass built in too! (maybe you want to take all your photos facing north, I don’t know)

The laptop tray has a rubbery goodness to it that will hold your laptop nice and tightly, and the ball heads are very precise, so you could as easily use this tripod for macro / still lifey / product type shots… and, I guess anything else that you’d choose to shoot tethered? Who shoots tethered, why? I’d love to know in the comments below.

ePod Diversity comes as just a tripod, or as a kit if you buy it all together – as “just a tripod” it is a very sturdy studio tripod, but when you add the platform it’s like a mobile work-bench. ePod comes with a zippered nylon carry case and is available on special right now for £125.00 (for the tripod) £150 with the beam / platform (down from £199.00 (be quick?!)

There’s much filler and bumpf you could write about any product, but honestly… it’s a tripod – it does what a tripod should do, it does it very well. The tray / arm set-up works very well. If you want a very well priced, light studio tripod… check it out.

Based on functionality, price, build and quality… the ePod Diversity picks up 5 of a possible 5 tripod legs (like stars, but different)

Find out more about it here.

Summary

Reviewer

Sime

Review Date

2010-11-28