Takeway T1 Clampod at a glance:
- Price: £49.99
- Website: www.takeway.tw
Small camera supports that latch on to objects in your environment, such as desks and trees, aren’t particularly new. Companies such as Joby have been doing this for a number of years. However, the Takeway T1 Clampod is slightly different. As the name suggests, it’s a tripod and clamp all in one. Supplied in the box is a stabilising foot allowing the Clampod to act like a regular tabletop tripod, standing around 16cm tall. Using an easy-to-manoeuvre plastic handle, the vice mechanism can clamp down on to a variety of surfaces, opening up by 5cm. The clamp has cubic tips with flat, small ridges or deep ridges to help create better grip on different surfaces. On the top is a ball head that can be rotated 360°, while a 90° cut groove allows for portrait-format shooting when the device is upright, and more positions when clamped to something that’s not upright.
On the top is a standard camera tripod thread and the plate can be conveniently removed to let the user easily screw it into the camera. This means users can change cameras without having to take the Clampod out of position. Takeway rates its Clampod to 3kg – enough to hold a medium-sized DSLR with a lens. The Clampod’s construction is of high quality, with a very solid build.
Other nice features are the special attachments that make it possible to hold tablets and smartphones, so it’s ideal for keeping on a desk, in a car, in an office or mounted on your bicycle. It is good to know it has a secondary use because I can only assume not many photographers are going to need to clamp their cameras to a tree on a daily basis. Overall, this is quite a nice product and in comparison to others available it’s far more robust and secure without being too heavy. GoPro enthusiasts will love it.
