Today, zomei z818 are mainly composed of two materials, carbon fiber and aluminum. If you want to invest in a series of tripod legs, you often have to choose between the two. It could have been a short contribution. Carbon fiber is clearly the best material from a technical and constructive point of view. The why and how much better is the long part of this article.
From a theoretical point of view, the choice to use carbon fiber rather than aluminum is well justified. The rigidity of a material is quantified by a metric called Young's modulus. On this page Wikipedia, stiffness is given for carbon fiber with 181 GPa, the aluminum with 69 GPa. A carbon tripod with the same tube dimensions as an aluminum will work much better. In addition, carbon fiber is less dense than aluminum and therefore the carbon fiber vs aluminum tripod is also lighter.
This simplistic comparison is far from history. In practice, the quality and rigidity of carbon fiber tubes vary considerably. Many factors play a role in the manufacture of a carbon fiber tube, for example: As a fiber direction, fiber modulus and resin / fiber ratio. For example, the same Wikipedia page mentioned in the paragraph above lists another carbon fiber with a 30 to 50 GPa module, far less than aluminum. It is easy to save on manufacturing costs by using poor quality tubes and always being able to market the tripod as carbon fiber.
Tripod manufacturers often refer to the number of carbon layers used in their pipes, but this can be misleading and have a low correlation with the final rigidity of the pipe. There is a reason why none of the major manufacturers mention the number of layers in their tubes. It is a senseless measure. I do not know of any way to measure the quality of a carbon fiber tripod tube without measuring the rigidity of a tripod like this job. There is much more to say about carbon fibers, such as the non-isotropic nature of stiffness, and I will probably do so in a future article. First of all, let's just say that the rigidity of the different carbon fiber composites is very different.
The following is a graph of rigidity-dependent rigidity for each tripod I tested. This is simply a visual representation of the ranking page. The higher the zomei tripod is to the left, the better the score. In this drawing, aluminum tripods are blue and those with carbon fiber feet are red.
Carbon fiber tripods always seem to be better on average, but not dominant. As we have seen in previous articles, damping can behave in an entertaining way compared to the linear behavior of stiffness. In particular, it is easy to add a lot of cushioning to a tripod by simply changing the material of the top plate or letting the adjustment screws of the head snap into place. The inherent cushioning of the legs can be minimized by other design factors of the tripod. Since we have seen carbon fiber tripods with very low damping, I postulate that the materials of the feet contribute relatively little to the damping that we normally see in tripods. As expected, carbon fibers appear to be better padded than aluminum.
In addition to analyzing the entire reviewed database of tripods, I tested four different tripod sets, with the exception of the foot. These provide better control for our study. The specifications for these tripods are listed below. As usual, the reported stiffness and damping are the harmonic mean of the measurements made around the two axes.
From a theoretical point of view, the choice to use carbon fiber rather than aluminum is well justified. The rigidity of a material is quantified by a metric called Young's modulus. On this page Wikipedia, stiffness is given for carbon fiber with 181 GPa, the aluminum with 69 GPa. A carbon tripod with the same tube dimensions as an aluminum will work much better. In addition, carbon fiber is less dense than aluminum and therefore the carbon fiber vs aluminum tripod is also lighter.
This simplistic comparison is far from history. In practice, the quality and rigidity of carbon fiber tubes vary considerably. Many factors play a role in the manufacture of a carbon fiber tube, for example: As a fiber direction, fiber modulus and resin / fiber ratio. For example, the same Wikipedia page mentioned in the paragraph above lists another carbon fiber with a 30 to 50 GPa module, far less than aluminum. It is easy to save on manufacturing costs by using poor quality tubes and always being able to market the tripod as carbon fiber.
Tripod manufacturers often refer to the number of carbon layers used in their pipes, but this can be misleading and have a low correlation with the final rigidity of the pipe. There is a reason why none of the major manufacturers mention the number of layers in their tubes. It is a senseless measure. I do not know of any way to measure the quality of a carbon fiber tripod tube without measuring the rigidity of a tripod like this job. There is much more to say about carbon fibers, such as the non-isotropic nature of stiffness, and I will probably do so in a future article. First of all, let's just say that the rigidity of the different carbon fiber composites is very different.
The following is a graph of rigidity-dependent rigidity for each tripod I tested. This is simply a visual representation of the ranking page. The higher the zomei tripod is to the left, the better the score. In this drawing, aluminum tripods are blue and those with carbon fiber feet are red.
Carbon fiber tripods always seem to be better on average, but not dominant. As we have seen in previous articles, damping can behave in an entertaining way compared to the linear behavior of stiffness. In particular, it is easy to add a lot of cushioning to a tripod by simply changing the material of the top plate or letting the adjustment screws of the head snap into place. The inherent cushioning of the legs can be minimized by other design factors of the tripod. Since we have seen carbon fiber tripods with very low damping, I postulate that the materials of the feet contribute relatively little to the damping that we normally see in tripods. As expected, carbon fibers appear to be better padded than aluminum.
In addition to analyzing the entire reviewed database of tripods, I tested four different tripod sets, with the exception of the foot. These provide better control for our study. The specifications for these tripods are listed below. As usual, the reported stiffness and damping are the harmonic mean of the measurements made around the two axes.
As you can see on the chart, the carbon fiber supports are about 20% lighter, have better stiffness and are generally better damped, for a price almost twice as much. With regard to the differences in rigidity and damping, there is considerable variability between the pairs of backpacking tripod. For Manfrotto MT tripods, the stiffness and damping of the carbon versions are much better, while for the Mefoto Globetrotter, the stiffness is about the same and the damping is slightly worse.
This inequality is probably due to the quality of the carbon fibers used. Mefoto's cheap carbon fiber tubes are significantly lighter than their aluminum counterparts, but have no better performance. The Manfrotto MT tripods have recently intensified their game and use better quality tubes. This dataset is intrinsically limited to tripods with a carbon fiber version and an aluminum version. The most expensive (and most powerful) tripods are not available in aluminum. This prevents us from directly comparing how the best carbon tripods can be better. However, the performance of stiffness versus weight for all tripods above shows that carbon performance is at least several times better. It is no secret that manufacturers who want to make the best tripods use only carbon.
So far, we have focused solely on the performance aspects of carbon fiber and aluminum. These materials have different properties that affect the use of the tripod. Carbon fiber has a much lower thermal conductivity than aluminum. Facing an aluminum tripod on a cold morning can be a very uncomfortable experience and hinder shooting. The insulating properties of the carbon fiber can make it no problem. Although leg wrapping can be used, you can also increase the weight of a tripod. Under heavy load, the aluminum deforms while the carbon fiber breaks. A curved tripod is probably still useful, but a broken backpacking tripod is not. If you have problems with your device, this can be a determining factor in the choice of materials.
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