Review of a reliable retractable tripod-monopod Ulanzi MT34 from Aliexpress

A retractable mono­pod, in my opin­ion, is a con­ve­nient and prac­ti­cal aux­il­iary device for tak­ing pho­tos and videos using a smart­phone. Such devices are well suit­ed for joint shoot­ing on a fam­i­ly vaca­tion or on a walk with friends. In this pub­li­ca­tion, I will make a detailed review of one inter­est­ing and high-qual­i­ty mono­pod tri­pod mod­el from the well-known com­pa­ny Ulanzi.

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Brief spec­i­fi­ca­tions

• Fold­ed length: 260 mm
• Max­i­mum unfold­ed length: 815 mm
• Max­i­mum design load: 1.5 kg
• Smart­phone hold­er: 58 to 98 mm
• Mate­r­i­al: ABS plas­tic, met­al
• Weight: 273 g

Ini­tial­ly, I did not have a goal to pur­chase such a device, but I found it in one of the stores on Aliex­press, where I some­times buy var­i­ous gad­gets for pho­tog­ra­phy and video shoot­ing. When I saw this mono­pod tri­pod, I remem­bered how con­ve­nient it is to take pho­tos and videos with such devices, espe­cial­ly when you are on vaca­tion with close friends or rel­a­tives. At such rare meet­ings, I want all my rel­a­tives to be in the frame. How­ev­er, I did not want to use my smart­phone with the bud­get self­ie sticks that I have at home, and on the eve of the hol­i­days I decid­ed to pur­chase this mono­pod tri­pod mod­el. Also, the deci­sion to pur­chase this prod­uct was influ­enced by the abil­i­ty to use this device as a reg­u­lar mini-tri­pod for the cam­era.

So, the par­cel after the order arrived at the local post office after about two weeks. The device is packed in a card­board box, which the sell­er pre-wrapped in a shock­proof film.

First impres­sions of the prod­uct are quite good, you imme­di­ate­ly notice that the device looks a lit­tle rougher and at the same time stronger than in the pho­to.

The upper part of the prod­uct with Ulanzi brand­ing, as well as the clip and the rotat­ing sphere are made of met­al alloys. A part marked with Ulanzi can be rotat­ed around its axis by 360 degrees, and with the help of a sphere, you can set the angle you need for shoot­ing.

The required posi­tion is fixed with a spe­cial clamp.

To extend the tele­scop­ic part of the device, it is nec­es­sary to turn a spe­cial clip with the image of a “lock” sev­er­al times in the appro­pri­ate direc­tion.

After unlock­ing, you can extend the tele­scop­ic part to the length you need, then to fix the select­ed posi­tion, the afore­men­tioned clip must be returned to its orig­i­nal posi­tion.

Tele­scop­ic tubes are installed one in one quite tight­ly and move with a cer­tain effort. It is worth not­ing that at the max­i­mum exten­sion in this design, around its axis, there is a small back­lash of about two mil­lime­ters, but it man­i­fests itself with an inten­tion­al break. With nor­mal use with a load of up to 320 grams, this prob­lem is not observed.

The top of the prod­uct has a series of thick rub­ber pads that will pro­tect any mount­ed equip­ment from scratch­es, and are also designed to keep equip­ment from slid­ing around in the clamps. The man­u­fac­tur­er also added a small rub­ber pad to the clamp­ing screw, which is nec­es­sary to pro­tect the smart­phone used with the device.

Anoth­er plus is the pres­ence of a spe­cial wheel, with which you can eas­i­ly and quick­ly fix the nec­es­sary equip­ment on a mono­pod tri­pod.

I will also add that I often use this prod­uct as a tri­pod for set­ting the main or aux­il­iary light­ing.

If you are inter­est­ed in the RGB lamp in the pho­to, I leave a link to its full review in my blog on the site.

As you already under­stood, this mono­pod tri­pod is designed for use with equip­ment with a stan­dard thread­ed con­nec­tion, as well as with var­i­ous smart­phones with a width of 58 to 98 mm.

The clip for the smart­phone, if nec­es­sary, is fold­ed and fixed with a spe­cial latch.

To ensure that the device does not slip on the installed sur­face in the tri­pod posi­tion, the man­u­fac­tur­er installed rub­ber pads on the legs of the prod­uct.

Anoth­er advan­tage of this prod­uct is the pres­ence of a “hot shoe” type lock, which allows you to use addi­tion­al light­ing or a micro­phone in con­junc­tion with a smart­phone.

At the max­i­mum exten­sion of the tele­scop­ic tube, the device can eas­i­ly with­stand the weight of my smart­phone and an addi­tion­al lamp, the total weight of which is 320 grams. At the same time, almost any manip­u­la­tion can be per­formed with the mono­pod, the smart­phone sits secure­ly in the clamp and does not respond to shak­ing or sharp swings.

For the sake of exper­i­ment, I installed my SLR cam­era with a lamp on a mono­pod. In this con­fig­u­ra­tion, sur­pris­ing­ly, the device can also be used, but I think no one will use this mono­pod. How­ev­er, I want to note that there is such an oppor­tu­ni­ty, but in any case, I do not rec­om­mend extend­ing the device to the max­i­mum length with such a load.

The weight of the reviewed prod­uct with­out addi­tion­al equip­ment is 273 grams, which, togeth­er with a SLR cam­era, is a fair­ly large mass for shoot­ing at arm’s length. Despite this, I often use this device as a mini tri­pod for my SLR cam­era.

Dur­ing the oper­a­tion of the mon­i­tored device, I revealed one obvi­ous minus. The extend­able legs of the tri­pod, which are also a han­dle, can move slight­ly apart when used with a heavy load or when inten­tion­al­ly squeezed. How­ev­er, they do not break, and this design fea­ture, in my opin­ion, does not threat­en the integri­ty of the equip­ment used.

For more infor­ma­tion, I rec­om­mend that you addi­tion­al­ly read the video ver­sion of the review.

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Sum­ming up, I want to say that this is an expen­sive prod­uct with excel­lent char­ac­ter­is­tics. This mono­pod may look a bit rough, but it uses durable plas­tic and met­al parts. It is designed and accu­rate­ly able to with­stand the heavy weight of var­i­ous equip­ment. As I said, the device is per­fect for tak­ing pho­tos and videos with loved ones. Well, that’s all, dear read­ers, I hope the review was use­ful to you. Thank you for your atten­tion.