let me start by saying being one of my tripods is not a easy life. I use my tripods regularly in Salt water.Recently I've started to use cheaper lighter tripods because I just don't want to be carrying a heavy tripod around so bought one of these.The tripod has lots of useful features such as one of the legs having foam on it, the panning action for panos is nice and the tripod is Arca Swiss head (much more stability on portrait shots because the lens is centrally above the legs rather than hanging over the side). The main problem with the tripod is that all the legs eventually fell off after less than a years service. This may be due to the hard life my tripods get. The reason why I'd buy this again is because I've just superglued the legs back in and it's as good as new. Everything else about this tripod is perfect for me. I'm also past the stage of worrying about portraying myself as a good photographer by having a more established Manfrotto or similar. I'm more confident in actually knowing what I'm doing and knowing that this is a better tripod for me. Plenty out there .....with all the gear and no idea.