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There have been many times when I have wan­ted a tri­pod while taking pho­tos, but I did not want to carry around a bulky tri­pod since I only use a com­pact camera.

Last week I orde­red a Gori­lla­pod — a com­pact and light­weight alter­na­tive to a tra­di­tio­nal tri­pod — and I was able to try it out this weekend.

Uni­que Design

The main dif­fe­rence bet­ween the Gori­lla­pod and a tra­di­tio­nal tri­pod is that the Gori­lla­pod is desig­ned to wrap around (or stand on) an exis­ting object. This allows the Gori­lla­pod to remain small and por­ta­ble — when fol­ded up it is not much big­ger than my camera and com­for­tably fits inside a camera bag or even a poc­ket. The fle­xi­ble joints along the tri­pod legs allow the Gori­lla­pod to be quickly set up, but still be very sta­ble. In fact a num­ber of peo­ple watched as I wrap­ped the Gori­lla­pod around fen­ces and branches.

The only cri­ti­cism I have so far is that the Gori­lla­pod does not make it easy to set the camera up in a por­trait posi­tion as oppo­sed to a lands­cape posi­tion, but this is only a minor inconvenience.

Photo Exam­ples

I used the Gori­lla­pod to take a num­ber of long expo­sure pho­tos of a stream at Muir Woods and they came out well. Check out the Muir Woods album for more examples.

I would defi­ni­tely recom­mend the Gori­lla­pod if you are loo­king for a basic tri­pod that is light­weight and por­ta­ble. Note that it comes in three dif­fe­rent sizes and a new Gori­lla­pod Solo model was just announced.