Carbon Fiber vs. Aluminum Tripods

Today, tripods are made predominantly from two materials, carbon fiber and aluminum.  Those looking to invest in a set of tripod legs will often have to choose between the two.  This could have been a short post.  Carbon fiber is clearly the better material from an engineering and design perspective.  The why and how much better is the lengthy portion of this post.

From a theoretical perspective, the choice to use carbon fiber over aluminum is well founded.  The stiffness of a material is quantified by a metric called Young’s modulus.  On that wikipedia page, the stiffness for carbon fiber is listed at 181 GPa while that of aluminum is 69 GPa.  Thus, a carbon tripod with the same tube dimensions as an aluminum will perform much better.  In addition, the carbon fiber is less dense than aluminum and will therefore the tripod will be lighter as well.

This simplistic comparison is far from the whole story.  In practice, carbon fiber tubes vary wildly in quality and stiffness.  There are many factors that go into making a carbon fiber tube such as the direction of the fibers, the modulus of the fibers, and the resin/fiber ratio.  For example, that same wikipedia page referenced in the above paragraph lists a different carbon fiber as having a modulus of 30-50 GPa, far less than aluminum.  It is easy to save cost on the manufacturing side by having by using poor quality tubes while still being able to market the tripod as carbon fiber.  Tripod manufacturers often list the number of layers of carbon fiber used in their tubes, but this too can be misleading and only has a small correlation with the final tube stiffness.  There is a reason that none of the top manufacturers list the number of layers in their tubes.  Its a meaningless measure.  I know of no way to glean the quality of the carbon fiber tubes used in a tripod short of measuring the tripod stiffness as done on this site.  There is vastly more to say regarding carbon fiber, such as the non-isotropic nature of the stiffness, and I likely will in a future post.  For now, let us simply note that there is a huge variance in the stiffness of different carbon fiber composites.

Below is a plot of the height adjusted stiffness versus weight for every tripod I have tested.  This is simply a visual representation of the rankings page.  The further up and to the left a tripod is on the plot, the better the score.  In this plot though, the aluminum leg tripods are plotted in blue, and those with carbon fiber legs are plotted in red.

The difference in performance is clearly apparent, with carbon fiber tripods performing much better than the aluminum ones.  What is particularly interesting is that the aluminum tripods all appear to fall on a line, with the stiffness being roughly proportional to the weight.  It appears that the old notion that stable tripods are necessarily heavy is correct when it comes to aluminum legs.  For carbon fiber legs, we see a lot more dispersion between the lowest and highest performing tripods at a given weight.  This makes perfect sense given our understanding of the wide range in the quality of carbon fiber tubing.  The best carbon fiber tripods are dramatically lighter and stiffer than an aluminum one.  The worst ones appear to have similar stiffness to an aluminum counterpart while still maintaining weight advantages.

Theoretically, carbon fiber also appears to have better damping than aluminum.  Data for the damping ratio can be found for both aluminum and carbon fiber composite.  The damping ratios are better for the carbon fiber composites than for aluminum by a factor of between 1-3x depending on the sample of carbon fiber used and direction of vibration.  Damping ratio depends on the stiffness and weight of the material.  Carbon fiber is generally stiffer and lighter, and these would roughly offset each other in magnitude so the damping ratios should be somewhat comparable.  Just be warned that we are doing some serious back of the envelope science here.  Note that the damping figures reported on this site are not a ratio, but the absolute damping coefficient and are directly comparable to each other.  Again, carbon fiber composite can be manufactured in many different ways, and we should naturally expect variance in the damping properties.  In summary, we should expect better damping properties from carbon fiber legs.

With some expectations under our belt we can now take a look at the data.  Below is a plot of the mean damping (harmonic mean of pitch and yaw damping) versus the tripod weight.  The logic of this plot is less theoretically sound than that of the stiffness one, but is still useful.

The carbon fiber tripods still appear to do better on average, but not dominantly so.  As we have seen in previous posts, damping can behave in funny ways compared to the nice linear behavior of stiffness.  In particular, it is easy to add a lot of damping to a tripod simply by varying the material of the top plate or engaging the set screws that hold the head in place.  The damping inherent in the legs can therefore be dwarfed by other design factors of the tripod.  Given that we have seen carbon fiber tripods with very low damping, I postulate that the leg materials contribute relatively little to the damping that we typically see in tripods.  Carbon fiber does appear to damp better than aluminum though, as expected.

In addition to analyzing the entire database of tested tripods, I have tested four sets of tripods that are identical except for leg material.  These provide a much better control for our study.  The measured specs for these tripods are listed below.  As usual, the reported stiffness and damping are the harmonic mean of the measurements about the two axes.

TripodPriceMean Stiffness NmMean Damping JsWeight lbs (kgs)
Manfrotto MT055CXPRO3$3401289.0.3864.26 (1.933)
Manfrotto MT055XPRO3$230877.80.2005.50 (2.498)
Manfrotto MT190CXPRO3$330756.60.1773.49 (1.587)
Manfrotto MT190XPRO3$176519.70.0674.39 (1.995)
Manfrotto 190go! Carbon$280548.20.1482.97 (1.351)
Manfrotto 190go! Aluminum$150482.70.1253.63 (1.65)
MeFoto GlobeTrotter Carbon$350531.20.1662.97 (1.35)
MeFoto GlobeTrotter Aluminum$200495.40.1963.64 (1.653)

As you can see from the table, the carbon fiber tripods are roughly 20% lighter, with better stiffness, generally better damping, at just under double the price.  There is significant spread between the pairs of tripods with respect the difference in stiffness and damping performance.  For the Manfrotto MT tripods, the stiffness and damping is much better for the carbon versions, while for the Mefoto Globetrotter the stiffness is roughly the same and the damping is somehow worse.

This disparity directly is almost certainly a result of the quality of carbon fiber used.  The cheap carbon fiber tubes of the Mefoto are significantly lighter than their aluminum counterparts, but don’t actually perform better.  The Manfrotto MT tripods have stepped up their game recently, and are clearly using higher quality tubes.  This data set is inherently limited to tripods that have both carbon fiber and aluminum versions.  All of the most expensive (and highest performing) tripods don’t come in aluminum versions.  This denies us the direct comparison of how much better the best carbon tripods can be.  However, the stiffness vs weight plot for all tripods above tells us that the performance of carbon is at least several times better.  It is no mystery why those manufacturers looking to make the best possible tripods only use carbon.

So far we have only focused on the performance aspects of carbon fiber and aluminum.  There are other properties to these materials that affect the use of the tripod.  Carbon fiber has much lower thermal conductivity than aluminum.  Handling an aluminum tripod on a cold morning can be a truly uncomfortable experience and affect a shoot.  The insulating properties of the carbon fiber can make this a non-issue.  In a pinch though, so can leg wraps, but these further add to a tripod’s weight.  Under severe stress, aluminum deforms while carbon fiber shatters.  A bent tripod is still likely useful while a shattered one is not.  If damage is a concern for your equipment, this may factor into your choice of material.

In summary:

Carbon

  • Better Stiffness
  • Better Damping
  • Lighter
  • Lower Thermal Conductivity

Aluminum

  • Cheaper
  • Damage Resistant

Carbon fiber is clearly the better material for tripods.  It simply performs at a much higher than aluminum, which was the previous material of choice.  Aluminum still has a role to play for economical tripods.  It is much cheaper and can be used to provide good value and build quality.  If by the end of this article you are still trying to choose between aluminum and carbon fiber, you simply need to decide if the performance gains from carbon fiber are worth the additional cost.  And remember, not all carbon fiber is created equal.

16 thoughts on “Carbon Fiber vs. Aluminum Tripods

  1. Very helpful comparison, tha
    nk you for going to the troubl
    e to describe the materials’q
    ualities. I’m considering a ne
    w Manfrotto, and wondering
    which version… Good old all
    oy or this strange carbon tha
    t, in the case of supercars, is
    all very fine and light until th
    e car hits anything, and then i
    t cracks in two like a dropped
    casserole dish… While the ol
    d saucepan might get a little
    dent. Hmmm. Thanks again!

  2. Thanks for your excellent test work and very useful results. It is refreshing to see some
    basic physics applied to understand performance differences in tripods!

    I am curious as to your thoughts on the damping characteristics of wood tripods, such as
    those made by Berlebach. In the astronomy community they have a loyal following for their
    massive capacities and reputed high damping factors.

    1. At some point, I need to test some wooden tripods. Wood is supposed to have fantastic damping properties which is why it is used in astronomy applications. The main problem is that it also has terrible stiffness compared to carbon fiber or aluminum, making it impossible to build a tall, lightweight tripod out of wood.

      1. FWIW, my astronomy tripod is an Avalon Instruments T-POD 110, a steel and aluminum tripod, and it was a
        huge improvement over the RRS TVC-34 tripod I had used for my telescope: damping times are much
        shorter. On the RRS, every time I focused with a relatively high magnification setup (112.5 to 150x: 8mm
        and 5mm eyepieces on a 900mm focal length) or nudged the scope to center an object in the view, it would
        take a few seconds to settle down, and it was actually hard to find the correct focus distance. The T-POD
        makes things so much easier and more pleasurable to use now. Making things more difficult for both tripods
        is that I also use an 11-inch steel pier from Stellarvue and their M2 mount on top of the tripod to raise the
        telescope (a Skywatcher 100ED refractor) to a good height.

        In the astro community, the Berlebach Planet and T-Pod are competitors in the same niche and they’re
        considered about equal in performance with the T-Pod being lighter as its main advantage though it has a
        less classical appearance — mine is red.

        1. Yeah, I am fairly certain the T-Pod would outperform the RRS in stiffness and damping, but it also weighs 15.5 lbs and only reaches 43 inches in height. With the large size of astro instruments and their high magnification, performance is much more important than it is in the photography world.

        2. In light of recent wind testing, how
          do you deal with wind when you have a
          telescope on a tripod?

          1. In windy conditions I have to add weight to tripod. Light tripods move easily. I use a weight from
            photorockbar.com.

          2. I have found that while extra weight can help a tripod not tip over, I have yet to find evidence that it helps keep the camera still during exposures. Instead of carrying a weight bag around, its better to just a more stable tripod to begin with.

      2. Take a look at one of the almost 100-year-old Crown wood tripods (made by
        Folmer and Schwing). The Crown no. 4 is tall and not stiff at all. But it will hold a
        Hasselblad or equivalent in the wind and not vibrate at all. I wonder why some
        company does not introduce a line of brand new Crown triopds? Cheers!

        1. There are a couple companies that make wooden tripods still, but I haven’t had the opportunity to test any of them yet.

          1. I’m interested in results from tests comparing wood, aluminium and carbon tripods!
            Unfortunatly I do not have the equipment to measure the rigidity, damping, … characteristics.

  3. A Gitzo Studex Performance made of Aluminium costs 100 bucks, the Carbon thing costs 1000 bucks, both pre-owned.

  4. I’ve been using carbon fiber tripods for over 16
    years and I just bought my nephew an aluminum
    tripod, he asked me what’s the difference between
    two and I found ur article. Excellent information and
    both of us were very happy, by way, I used a wood
    tripod once in Egypt. That’s not very easy to use
    honestly, but looks super cool!

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