Wednesday 18 February 2015, 23:40:
In all haste I wanted to buy a nice and solid tripod for not too much money, mainly for star photography. In Given my impatient nature, I was looking for an online store that accepted and processed orders until late at night. That's how I came across Coolblue during my search.
Now I was advised by a friend to take a slightly sturdier tripod. In all my stubbornness I therefore decided to purchase the HAMA star 63 instead of the HAMA star 61. The bigger brother of the HAMA star 61. Literally the big brother, because the only thing that differs is the working height.
Literally 10 minutes after placing the order I received an email stating that my order has been collected. Thank you employees, I'll drink a pot of coffee to your work ethic! So they weren't kidding that you could order until 11:59 PM.
Thursday 19 February 2015, 10:30 am:
The playing can start, after literally a night's sleep I had the tripod in my hands. Shipping went well and as far as I could see the package was treated like porcelain from the warehouse to my door, no damage whatsoever.
At first impression, the tripod feels good, aluminum legs with plastic stoppers. The cheapest plastic has not been used and that adorns this tripod within its price range. Unfolding the tripod will be difficult the first time. However, after unfolding it a few times, this runs smoothly. The legs themselves are sturdy and do not slide away quickly, if this does happen, you can weight the tripod by means of the hook at the bottom of the tripod.
Extending the legs is easy and lifting the plastic head is smooth.
Then we arrive at the head of the tripod. It contains a quick release plate (!) which works very nicely. Moving the head goes from stiff to loose without really an intermediate step, this makes the tripod less suitable for, for example, videographers who want to make a gradual movement with the head. It's not a problem for me, though, because it needs to be as fixed as possible without moving while taking photos. And the tripod does this surprisingly well. It does mean to me that when I want to shoot videos (which I do) on this tripod that I have to make an extra investment in this. This may be an area for improvement for HAMA. However, it is more than sufficient for this price range and I can't really complain.
When the tripod is at full height, it only suffers from movement when there is a strong wind. This will be less with more expensive tripods. The maximum height is also ideal for me as I am 2 meters tall. Photo 4 shows the tripod under a door frame of 2.10 meters by way of illustration.
In addition, you also get a carrying bag and the tripod is fairly compact. This product has surprised me, and I am only too happy about it.
Attached are a few photos. The first photo was taken without a tripod, the second and third photos are the first photos taken with a tripod. After taking these pictures I realized that this really was a great investment.
I can't wait to go into the countryside and shoot pictures of the stars with my tripod without light pollution of the city!
