It’s been about five years since I discovered 3 Legged Thing, a British company specializing in tripods and other supports. My first encounter was with the Winston 2.0 and AirHed Pro kit. I instantly fell for Winston, and it’s still my favorite full-sized tripod to this day. Even so, a lot has happened in the last five years, and 3 Legged Thing has branched out in all sorts of different directions, currently catering to photographers and videographers, as well as ramping up its endeavors for field sports and birding, plus shooting and target sports. I’ve reviewed many 3 Legged Thing tripods and heads, desk mounts, window mounts, phone mounts, microphone arms, light stands, L-brackets, camera straps, and other items along the way, being highly impressed by pretty much all of them.
Bringing things up to date, there’s a dynamic duo of new 3 Legged Thing video tripods in town, going by the names of Ridley and Wes. They’re both similar in many ways and are named after master movie directors. Ridley (Scott) is the larger three-section tripod of the two, whereas Wes (Anderson) is the smaller sibling, with a travel-friendly, fold-down-small five-section leg design. Both carbon fiber tripods are available as sets of legs on their own, or as full kits with the same fluid head. They aim to be among the best carbon fiber tripods and the best video tripods, while the Wes that I’m reviewing here also eyes up a spot as one of the best travel tripods for videographers.
3 Legged Thing Wes: Specifications
Material |
Carbon fiber |
Folded height |
54.8cm / 21.6in |
Maximum operating height |
134.5cm / 53in |
Minimum operating height |
21cm / 8.3in |
Monopod conversion |
Yes |
Weight |
2.1kg / 4.6lb |
Load rating |
14kg / 30lb |
Sections per leg/center column |
5 / 0 |
Maximum leg section diameter |
26cm / 1.02in |
Locking leg angles |
3 |
Feet |
Pads (interchangeable) |
Case/bag included |
Padded case |
3 Legged Thing Wes: Price
Quality seldom comes cheap, and sure enough, a set of the premium Wes travel tripod legs will set you back $399 / £379 (AU$ TBA). Go for the complete kit with the addition of a high-performance fluid head, and you can expect to pay $599 / £569. They’re both fairly substantial chunks of money, but the features, design and build quality make them well worth the outlay, especially as both options feature a built-in leveling base, smart padded soft case and handy little extras. All in all, they’re very competitively priced.
3 Legged Thing Wes: Design & Handling
Wes Anderson has proved himself as an ingenious, stylistic, and very versatile movie director over the last 30 years, so Wes is an inspirational and aspirational name for this new video travel tripod from 3 Legged Thing. Available in gray and black with orange accents or in all-black, the legs are made from premium Japanese eight-layer carbon fiber with an aerospace-grade magnesium alloy canopy. But when shooting a video narrative, I feel that legs are only half the tripod story, so I went for the full kit that adds a fluid head. More on the head later, but I’ll begin with the legs.
The small stowage size of the Wes tripod legs equates to just 44cm / 17.3in in length, or 54.8cm / 21.6in with the fluid head fitted. To my mind, that makes the kit small enough to take on pretty much every journey to any location, whether I’m pounding around local city streets or jetting off to the other side of the world. For the latter, the tripod is small enough to fit within the cabin baggage regulations of most airlines.
Fully extending all five sections of each leg reveals ever-decreasing circles, in terms of the relative diameters. Even so, the thinnest bottom sections have a perfectly respectable 14mm diameter. Not only is that significantly greater than in many travel tripods that I’ve seen and used, but it also enables a strong payload rating of 14kg / 30lb, even when the tripod is at full stretch.
There are a couple of potential drawbacks to five-section legs that can outweigh the allure of compact stowage. First up, each joint is a possible point of weakness, where flexing and wobbling might be introduced. The second is that you end up with no less than 12 separate leg section locks to contend with when fully extending and contracting the tripod. That can equate to a lot of time and effort.
Thankfully, the twist-action section locks featured in the Wes only require minimal rotation to unlock and relock them. You can easily grab the full set of them for each leg when the sections are contracted, and tighten or loosen them with a single flick of the wrist. Ultimately, they’re surprisingly quick and easy to use, while maintaining super-solid locking that avoids any unwanted flexing or movement when the tripod is in use.
While the twist-locks for the leg sections are a brilliant piece of design that’s thoroughly well executed, the same applies to the locks for the three alternative leg angles. The leg angles themselves measure 23, 55, and 80 degrees from the vertical, so there’s plenty of room for maneuver. Moreover, the simple yet highly effective spring-loaded, push-lever locks ensure maximum speed and ease when playing all the angles. Unlike many travel tripods, including the more stills-centric 3 Legged Thing Leo 2.0 + AirHead Pro, there’s no time wasted swinging the legs up around the center column for compact stowage, as the Wes has no center column anyway.
One place you generally don’t want any angles coming into play is in the platform on which the head is mounted. If you try to compensate by adjusting the level of the head itself, you’ll find that your horizons go wonky as soon as you start panning. One method is to meticulously adjust the overall height of each leg, so that the tripod canopy is level. However, this tends to be an arduous, time-consuming process, especially if you’re working on uneven ground.
To make things quick, simple, and highly effective, the Wes features a built-in leveling base that is an absolute doddle to use. It has a single locking screw with a spring-loaded handle mounted on a six-sided shaft, so you can pull out the handle and rotate it for your favored orientation. Another aid to leveling up is that the base features a bubble level, which can be rotated through a full 360 degrees for easy viewing from any angle.
With the opposite of a soft underbelly, Wes has a pair of solid, robust weight hooks extending from the bottom of its magnesium alloy leveling base. They’re ideal for adding ballast to avoid the tripod swaying in the breeze if you’re shooting outdoors in windy conditions.
Intent as ever to cram as many crafty design flourishes into a tripod as possible, 3 Legged Thing has doubled up the usefulness of the weight hooks. The hooks also form the T-section of an Allen key that mounts to the underside of the leveling base via a QD (Quick Detach) mechanism. A simple press of a button is all that’s required to release the Allen key, which you can then use for securing your camera to the head’s quick-release plate, or for anything else that uses the same-size Allen key.
I’ve written a full, standalone review of the revamped and updated 3 Legged Thing AirHed Cine CC fluid head, and as part of the complete kit, it’s an ideal match for the Wes tripod legs. It ensures wonderfully smooth tilt and pan operation and excellent all-around performance. The favorable feature set includes an adjustable, telescopic panning arm that can mount on either side for left-handed or right-handed use, and an extra-long XP100 Ultra Plate quick-release plate, which is Arca-Swiss compatible.
Another bonus is that you can use that QD-mounted Allen key that I mentioned just now to remove four screws and rotate the orientation of the head’s camera platform through 90-degree increments. The upshot is that the long QR plate can run from side to side instead of just from front to back. The sideways orientation can be more ideal if you’re using a cage, and definitely if you’re using an L-bracket like one of 3 Legged Thing’s camera-specific L-brackets or the universal 3 Legged Thing Lexie.
Going from top to bottom, or rather from head to foot, the legs are fitted with rubber pads that give a very firm and stable footing on most surfaces. There’s also a variety of alternative footwear on offer from 3 Legged Thing as optional extras. These include Heelz (metal spikes), Stilettoz (elevated metal spikes), Clawz (metal ice/rock grips) and Vanz (dual metal spikes and rubber pads).
There are many and varied tripods on the market, in which you can unscrew one of the legs and use it as a monopod instead. It’s a good idea in that it saves carrying two separate bits of support kit. With the Wes, however, you can remove all three legs if you wish, which adds even greater versatility.
A neat trick is that if you remove all three legs, you can use the canopy of the Wes with the optional Vanz footwear that I mentioned just now. These dual metal spikes with rubber pads can screw directly into the canopy, effectively transforming the Wes into a tabletop tripod.
There’s a handy multi-function tool supplied with the tripod kit, aptly named the 3 Legged Thing Toolz2. It has a keyring attachment and includes two different sizes of hex keys, a coin/flat blade key, a bottle opener, and a carabiner. It comes in useful for a whole range of tripod/photographic tasks, as well as for popping the tops off bottles when all that videography makes you work up a thirst.
Attention to detail in both design and manufacture is carried over from the tripod itself to the high-quality padded soft case that it’s supplied in. The case features a pair of internal securing straps for the tripod and an internal mesh pocket, all with Velcro fasteners. There’s also a side pocket for additional storage complete with a zippered three-section organizer (the zippers have comfy pullers for easy opening and closing). There’s a detachable, adjustable shoulder strap, a carrying handle, plus a carabiner-style hook. The hook is ideal for attaching the bag to one of the weight hooks on the tripod after popping a few weighty objects inside.
3 Legged Thing Wes: Performance
Travel tripods sometimes get a bad press, not least from me. Sure, I like that they tend to be lightweight to carry and fold down to unfeasibly small dimensions, but I feel that the lack of rigidity and meagre maximum operating height often makes them somewhat unfit for their intended purpose. I’m happy to report that while the maximum operating height of the 3 Legged Thing Wes kit isn’t exactly towering, it’s definitely tall enough for the vast majority of videography shooting scenarios, equating to 134.5cm / 53in complete with its fluid head. That’s actually pretty generous for a videocentric travel tripod that omits a center column.
Just as important, or maybe more so, is the fact that the Wes supplies firm, solid, and stable support even at its maximum operating height, with all of the leg sections fully extended. That’s no mean feat for a relatively lightweight tripod with 5-section legs.
Another factor that I’m happy to include under the ‘performance’ umbrella is that I like a tripod to enable ultra-low-level shooting without too much fuss and bother, or the need to invert the center column and shoot with the camera upside down, which is a bit of a non-starter for videography anyway. With its head in place, the Wes can shoot down to nearly ground level for creative effect, with a minimum operating height of just 21cm / 8.3in.
I found that the multiple leg angles made it easy to work around obstacles like low walls and staircases, as well as catering to rough terrain. Another bonus is that the middle leg angle setting enables a firmer footing when shooting from fairly low operating heights, adding stability and making the tripod less at risk of being knocked over accidentally or falling foul of very windy conditions.
I’m tall at 6ft 5in and found that the Wes was a little short for me in regular monopod mode, at least when using the viewfinder of a camera. Even so, I didn’t have to crouch very much, and like many of us, I’m much more likely to shoot video using the rear screen of a camera rather than putting my eye to the viewfinder. In this configuration, the monopod proved tall enough for me at its maximum height with the head fitted. And if you hanker after a taller monopod, you could connect two or even three legs, top to toe, after removing the feet from two or three of the legs, respectively.
3 Legged Thing Wes: Verdict
The 3 Legged Thing Wes ticks all of the boxes on my wish list for a video travel tripod. It folds down small and is very lightweight to carry, yet reaches a decent maximum operating height while being sturdy and resistant to flexing and vibrations. I’m generally wary of tripods with five-section legs because the bottom leg sections are often very thin and spindly, resulting in a drop in rigidity and stability when they’re extended. There was no hint of this when using the Wes, and I found it gave solid support throughout its entire operating range, from just above ground level to its maximum height.
The premium carbon fiber legs with their aerospace-grade magnesium alloy canopy are a great buy on their own. However, the recently updated 3 Legged Thing AirHed Cine CC fluid head is such a great match for the legs that I feel the complete kit is the best option. As a complete travel tripod for videographers, it’s hard to beat.
Features ★★★★★ |
High-end features include a built-in leveling base, quick-action twist-locks and pushbutton leg angle locks, plus monopod and tabletop tripod conversion, the latter as an optional extra. |
Design ★★★★★ |
Designed to be small and lightweight yet hugely versatile, the 3 Legged Thing Wes is cleverly designed, expertly engineered and impeccably turned out. |
Performance ★★★★★ |
Travel tripods are often spindly affairs that don’t give solid support, but the Wes is impressively rigid and very resistant to unwanted flexing and vibrations. |
Value ★★★★½ |
It’s certainly not cheap for a travel tripod but if you want something that really will go the distance and not let you down, both the legs on their own and the complete kit are star buys. |
