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Manfrotto 190 Tripod & Manfrotto 308 Ball Head
November 2002

What’s old is new again with a purchase of another Manfrotto 190 tripod. Regular readers will note that I once owned one of these a few years ago, so what gives in buying another one again?

I decided I needed to do a bit more general photography during my workplace breaks and since I am right in the downtown core so there are many potential subjects available. However, I do not desire to compromise the quality of the shots with my shaky hands by handholding the camera, thus I looked for a low cost tripod solution.

The combo 190 tripod and 308 ball head was available for $200 CAN and I bit. $200 is not a huge deal at all being only about $10 off buying the products separately, however, it is still much more affordable than a Gtizo 12xx series carbon fiber tripod with a similarly priced ball head, which would have pushed that cost up well past $1000 CAN.

My first 190 had a silver finish with a long centre column, which negated the use of the tripod for very low shooting angles. The new 190 is black, which looks more serious, and Manfrotto has updated the design to allow for a removable centre column, which allows for extremely low angle shooting. The Pro version of the 190 has the additional feature of being able to mount the centre column horizontally to allow for funky angles. For me a centre column is of little use, so I took it out and put it away in a desk drawer.

The leg locks have also been improved over the old twist locks of my former 190. The current 190 use quick snap locks, which allows for fast set-up of the tripod, however, they are a bit noisy and unlike Gitzo tripods, there is no air cushioning when extending or collapsing the legs. Lack of air cushioning makes for a very wobbly feel to the legs until the locks have been snapped into place.

As the 190 is a small tripod with thinner diameter leg sections, you are not going to want to mount heavy-duty artillery lenses of the super telephoto variety. I don’t own anything larger than an 80-200mm f2.8 lens and this is the comfortable maximum I think is appropriate for the 190. Heck I would probably be okay using the 190 with my medium format kit with wide to normal focal length lenses. However, I would not feel comfortable about using the 80-200mm lens with a 2x teleconvertor on top of the 190 and 308 combination.

With the 308 ball head attached, surprisingly, the 190 is not that much shorter than my current Gitzo 1345 with the Arca Swiss B1 attached. This can be explained though by that fact that my Gitzo 1345 is a four-section tripod and thus can be compacted to a shorter height than a similarly sized three-section tripod. This shorter height was the main reason why I bought the 1345 instead of the 1340.

Although the 1345 and the 190 are within a few inches of each other compacted, this similarity ends once the tripods have been fully extended. The 1345 extends to an eye-level above my diminutive 5’-5” height whereas the 190 extends to just under five-feet in height.

As a smaller and much cheaper tripod than the 1345, the 190 does not have the same rigidity that Gitzo’s are known for, however, that is not the point of the 190 for my proposed usage of it.

Used appropriately, the 190 is a fine little tripod that makes shooting on the trails or in the urban jungle easier and certainly far more effective than just straight handholding. It will provide stellar support with either of my digital cameras (D100 and Coolpix 950) as well as my rather elderly Konica S2 compact rangefinder camera.

Just as the 190 should not be held to the same standards as larger and more expensive tripods, the companion 308 ball head should not be compared directly to the larger, heavier and much more costly Arca Swiss B1 I normally use.

I use to use the Manfrotto 352 ball head with the old silver 190 and found them to be workable, but now a few years after those old days, the 352 is looking might small and puny, more than I recall it actually being. The 308 is larger and more solid than the 352 but as with other old style Manfrotto ball heads, the 308 is a grease lubricated ball head.

It has none of the smoothness of the finely machined Arca Swiss and I will have to do a bit of maintenance to keep it gunk-free. However, I have less qualms about using it with my 80-200mm lens than I did with the 352. I’ve used it already with the D100, which turns the 80-200mm into a 120-300mm lens and the 308 on the 190 delivered sharp results.

The 308 has but one control knob that unlocks the ball as well as the pan motion of the head on the tripod. I would rather have dual controls like the Arca Swiss or the larger and heavier Manfrotto ball heads but at only $80 CAN, one does have to live with some compromises.

Since I use Arca Swiss quick release plates for all of my cameras and lenses, I wanted to maintain that standard even with the 308 head. Luckily, I just happen to have a spare Arca Swiss clamp head from Kirk Enterprises that I now use with the 308.

The 308 has a spring-loaded quick release plate available and I’ve noticed Manfrotto has reduced the weight and bulk of its plates since the days when I used their products exclusively. I cannot permanently attach the Kirk clamp to the 308 and really, I would not want to, so I just attach the clamp to the quick release plate and use it thusly. Not particularly elegant with a bit of extra bulk but certainly usable and allows me to keep all my existing Arca Swiss plates in place.

The 190 and 308 combination is not going to threaten any heavy-duty tripod and head combination for solidity and rigidity, however, the small pod and head work fine for my intended light-duty usage out and about in downtown Vancouver, as well as the occasional use out on the trails.