Introduction

When it comes to photography, it goes without saying that the tools you use form the foundation of what type of images you will find yourself capturing. Beyond the camera itself, there’s a list of staples every creative simply can’t go without.

Memory cards and batteries are the obvious must haves, but the unsung hero of every photographer’s kit is undoubtedly the tripod. An occasional item for the everyday shooter, a “can’t live without” for landscape and commercial photographers alike. Unlike any other accessory you can add to your kit, quite often the tripod is the component that is the difference between being able to get the shot, and not.

Here we’ll be looking at K&F Concept’s BA225 carbon fibre tripod, which for the last few weeks has followed me through the rain, wind, fog and icing conditions of a Victorian winter.

Design & purpose

Tripods are one of those accessories that starts the never ending wormhole of research when looking for a new model to add to your quiver. Compromise is almost always a major factor affecting purchase, and to be honest, is unavoidable regardless of the money you plan to spend. A maximum dollar video tripod, for example, will be useless for photography where you plan on rapidly changing camera angle and orientation.

K&F’s BA225 has exclusively been manufactured for the lightweight travel photography enthusiast. Designed to be thrown on your pack, hiked through forests, rain, and travel with you around the planet, without ever noticing you’ve brought it along. This allows it to be that occasional item that is always there when you need it.

Tripod leg features and versatility

With the strong focus on travel, it’s great to see K&F’s attention to detail on the concept of versatility with this model. For those who regularly travel, you know how important it is to have one item that can do more than just what it’s advertised to do, as packing more than the base essentials is almost always out of the question.

The BA225’s legs have been designed in such a way to allow for more than the use they were intended to provide. The primary leg, marked with the soft to the touch foam cover both keeps your hand warm when needing to move and manipulate the tripod in icy conditions (a welcome addition when hiking the fjords of arctic Norway) , can actually be unscrewed, exposing a standard ⅜” thread, allowing the provided ballhead to be removed from the tripod and added to the leg, forming a monopod. Great for when using long telephoto lenses and needing to track wildlife.

Functionally, I’d have loved for there to have been a ¼” to ⅜” adapter included in this section of the leg to allow for faster deployment directly into the tripod mount of cameras and supported telephoto lenses. But the benefits of being able to use the ballhead on this setup far outweigh the inconvenience of needing to detach both from the original configuration.

Sitting atop the legs are the unmissable orange adjustment buckles that allow the legs to be positioned in 4 convenient orientations, independent of each other. This is honestly such a welcome feature, as almost always there seems to be a height or position you need to get your tripod into that a conventional triangle is not going to achieve.

The buckle allows for the legs to be positioned in the following arrangements

Standard tripod (as shown above).
Wide stance, great for lowering the centre of gravity, or getting the camera closer to the ground.
Perfectly flat, which is super useful if needing to suspend between surfaces
Inverted.

The inverted position is another point where K&F have really shown their R&D appealing to the travel market. And at this price point, is a super surprising feature to include. Being able to invert the legs and extend the centre column means the entire tripod can be folded up around the ballhead, reducing the overall height by roughly 5 additional inches. Anyone who’s ever had to deal with budget regional or short distance airlines such as Jetstar, Easyjet, WOW, Ryanair or Spirit knows how important reducing your overall packs size can be when boarding your flight.

Ball head & camera plate

The camera connecting side of the tripod is suitable quality, but quite noticeably lightweight and on the smaller side compared to some of the other lightweight tripods in my collection. Surprisingly, it had no issues holding my bulky 5D Mark IV & 16-35mm f/2.8L II ultrawide zoom, but could see gentle sag, and in turn, inaccuracy when needing to set the tripod head relative to my scene. This is never a huge issue on a lightweight tripod, but was something to note during operation.

For use on my much smaller, and also more travel friendly camera, the Fujifilm X-T4 and 35mm f/1.4 prime, this tripod is the perfect match, holding the body and lens combo without any stability issues whatsoever.

The ball itself locks off relatively firmly with the side thumb screw, but does need to be cranked to hold the heavier cameras.

I was both pleased and surprised to see the size of the camera plate, and the cute K F letters etched into the rubber feet for firm and slip free mating to the camera base. Once tightened to my 5D Mark IV, I found the plate to remain locked and secured for the duration of my use so far, and haven’t yet had to reposition or tighten.

Something underrated, particularly on a tripod plate of this size is the centre position indicator marked in a simple white line. Its not necessary, but where you’ve got overbalanced camera + lens combos, or just simply want to ensure perfect centre, it makes mounting and removing really fast and simple, especially when needing to remove and remount in succession.

In landscape photography, you’re almost never on a level surface. The inclusion of a spirit level on the mounting plate of this tripod is such a welcome feature, and can save the frustration of only realising all your images are off by 5° once you’ve returned from your 20km mountain climb and are now sitting in front of your MacBook reviewing your images. In the wild, its so easy to set your tripod thinking it’s level (left), only to realise it’s not (right).

Something about the design I’d love to have seen though, is the spirit level on the same size as the locking screw. This is only minor, but as I like to have my locking screw on the LCD side of the camera for easy tightening and removal, it means the level is hidden under the lens and unusable whilst the camera is mounted. For design reasons, I can see exactly why it’s positioned where it is, and is common through a range of brands but I always notice this when shooting.

Peak Design ‘Capture’ backpack mount tripod plate is compatible with K&F’s tripod.

Something I was super stoked to discover and may be useful to someone else, is the compatibility of the K&F ballhead with the tripod plate that comes with Peak Design’s AWESOME Capture Camera Clip.

For those who don’t know, this is a device you mount to the shoulder strap of your hiking pack or belt, and allows for instantaneous storage and quick release of your camera whilst hiking. It’s such a pain swapping tripod plates for various tools and devices, so to see the PD plate work securely with the K&F tripod is a huge win, as my capture unit is a staple part of my photographic kit, and comes with me on every camera and photo shoot.

Real world use and final thoughts

It’s so easy to get caught chasing the most rock steady tripod when shopping around and testing in store, or reading reviews online. I’m guilty of it, and have often obsessed over YouTubers and reviewers to ensure every cent of my dollar goes toward the perfect choice. But the reality is there’s situations where you don’t need the strongest, you don’t need the highest, and you don’t need the lightest.

K&F’s tripod straight out of the box was packed down to a tiny 35cm long, and was able to fully extend to 153cm tall. All whilst weighing in at only 1.02kg. This is less than the bottle of water you’d take on an afternoon walk, let alone full or multi day hikes. The tripod is a feather, and is essentially full size.

I will admit, when testing the torsional strength, the tripod did flex and twist under my hand’s force. Putting a fully loaded 5D on the plate was also able to induce flex on the tripod. But in standard-practice long exposures with mirror lockup or live view enabled, my shots showed no sign of wobble or jitter. Something I was excited to see for something of this size and weight. Granted, my Sirui is beefier, stronger, and lighter than this K&F model, it’s also 5x the price for more or less identical image capture ability.

I think if you’re in the market for a carbon lightweight tripod, perhaps to compliment larger or more rugged video-centric tripods in your kit, the K&F is a genuine contender in this space, as particularly for this price point of $132.99 AUD (at the time of writing this review), there simply isn’t another brand that is producing this quality, size, weight or versatility.

Be sure to check them out, and be sure to use my affiliate link if deciding to add one of these great units to your kit.