Review of one of the best tripods from Aliexpress under $30

Hel­lo every­one, dear read­ers. In this pub­li­ca­tion, I will talk about a good and reli­able tri­pod called Ando­er TTT-663N, which I pur­chased on Aliex­press. I will try to reveal all the func­tion­al­i­ty of the device and talk about my expe­ri­ence with this tri­pod. I must say right away that this review does not pre­tend to be a pro­fes­sion­al opin­ion. The tri­pod was bought for per­son­al “home” use.

Below is a link to the sell­er from whom the tri­pod was pur­chased. As well as sev­er­al mod­els that were con­sid­ered as can­di­dates for acqui­si­tion.

Bought here Ana­logue here Bud­get mod­el

Main tech­ni­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics

• Brand: Ando­er
• Mod­el: TTT-663N
• Mate­r­i­al: alu­minum alloy and ABS plas­tic
• Max­i­mum load capac­i­ty: 3 kg.
• Max­i­mum height: 1465 mm.
• Height with­out cen­tral axis: 1215 mm.
• Min­i­mum height: 455 mm.
• Fold­ed length: 480 mm.
• Device weight: 1434 g.

So, let’s move on to the review. After plac­ing the order, the goods were sent almost imme­di­ate­ly by the sell­er, and after three or four weeks I received the order at the local post office.

The par­cel was packed in a reg­u­lar plas­tic film, and inside there was a card­board box with a tri­pod.

The tri­pod comes with a fab­ric case, which makes it easy to store and car­ry the tri­pod. There is an adjustable strap on the case, with which you can car­ry a tri­pod on your shoul­der, but the dis­ad­van­tages of the case include its mediocre qual­i­ty. But in fair­ness it should be not­ed that after six months of use, the cov­er has com­plete­ly retained its pre­sen­ta­tion.

The kit also includes instruc­tions, a retain­er for a smart­phone, and — which is very pleas­ing — a bag for drain­ing mois­ture.

The man­u­al briefly describes the func­tion­al­i­ty of the device in Eng­lish. All impor­tant points are dis­played in illus­tra­tions, so every­thing is clear on an intu­itive lev­el.

As for the smart­phone hold­er, it is of quite good qual­i­ty, ful­ly func­tion­al and some­times used by me for its intend­ed pur­pose. The smart­phone in it is fixed secure­ly with the help of rub­ber­ized paws. The clamp also has a thread­ed mount for fix­ing to a tri­pod in a hor­i­zon­tal or ver­ti­cal posi­tion.

And mov­ing on to the most impor­tant thing, the tri­pod at first glance caus­es only a pos­i­tive impres­sion. Look­ing ahead a lit­tle, I will say that this impres­sion has been pre­served to this day.
The main parts of the tri­pod for load dis­tri­b­u­tion are made of alu­minum alloy, and the plas­tic parts also look sol­id and pleas­ant to the touch.

The end of the tri­pod legs that is in con­tact with the ground or the floor has a mov­able part, so that the tri­pod can be firm­ly fixed even on uneven sur­faces.

By the way, to install the tri­pod exact­ly hor­i­zon­tal­ly, there is a small lev­el on the body of the device, which can be used if nec­es­sary. Not that this is an impor­tant and inte­gral part of the tri­pod, but I some­times glance at the lev­el while set­ting up the tri­pod out­doors.

Like most sim­i­lar devices, this tri­pod has tele­scop­ic four-stage legs. More­over, any of the sec­tions can be fixed in a posi­tion con­ve­nient for you, again, this can help on uneven sur­faces or to imple­ment cer­tain ideas of the pho­tog­ra­ph­er. The latch­es snap into place and secure­ly hold their posi­tion.

After extend­ing all the tele­scop­ic legs to the max­i­mum, the height of the tri­pod is 1215 mil­lime­ters. I will def­i­nite­ly say that the tri­pod in the unfold­ed state under the weight of the cam­era or in var­i­ous oth­er sit­u­a­tions does not bend or deform, it is very con­ve­nient to work with it. The max­i­mum load weight in the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the prod­uct is 3 kilo­grams, how­ev­er, in my opin­ion, this weight is indi­cat­ed with a mar­gin, and if you use a tri­pod with­out expand­ing it to the max­i­mum height, then if nec­es­sary, you can load the device with even more weight. It is also worth not­ing the foam inserts that are installed on top of the tri­pod legs. Thanks to them, it is con­ve­nient to take the tri­pod and rearrange it from place to place.

To pre­vent tri­pod legs from col­laps­ing dur­ing shoot­ing and trans­fer­ring the tri­pod from place to place, there is a spe­cial latch that is acti­vat­ed when rotat­ed to the appro­pri­ate posi­tion. There is also a hook at the bot­tom, you can hang a case from a cam­era or a cam­era or oth­er equip­ment on it. The hook is strong and with­in rea­son it can be used with­out fear. The man­u­fac­tur­er posi­tions it as a hook for hang­ing var­i­ous loads to increase the sta­bil­i­ty of the tri­pod.

To reach the max­i­mum height of the tri­pod, the cen­ter axis must be extend­ed. To do this, unscrew the fix­ing screw No. 1 and rotate the lever No. 2 until you reach the height you need. After that, you need to tight­en screw No. 2 to fix the axis, since under the weight of the cam­era the axis will return to its orig­i­nal posi­tion.

In the max­i­mum unfold­ed posi­tion, the height of the tri­pod is 1465 mil­lime­ters.

In order to rotate the cam­era mount­ed on a tri­pod around its axis, you must first slight­ly loosen the fix­ing screw, which is shown above in the pho­to. The cam­era can then be rotat­ed 360 degrees. It is worth not­ing an impor­tant point, when the tri­pod is rotat­ed along this plane, the rota­tion occurs smooth­ly and with­out jerks, which is very impor­tant espe­cial­ly when shoot­ing video. Also, when turn­ing, you can use the marked scale in degrees, which is applied slight­ly below the fix­ing screw.

To adjust the angle of incli­na­tion, the cen­tral han­dle is used, it must first be loos­ened by unscrew­ing it a lit­tle, then you can select the desired angle and fix it back. It is also worth not­ing the smooth­ness of the ride.

On a tri­pod, you can adjust the angle of the cam­era in one more plane, for this you need to loosen the top­most screw, which is shown in the pho­to above. How­ev­er, I, prob­a­bly, due to my “home” use, nev­er had to use this func­tion. Although the pres­ence of this pos­si­bil­i­ty can def­i­nite­ly be attrib­uted to the plus­es.

The top plate, to which the cam­era is attached, has a quick release mech­a­nism. A stan­dard screw with an eye­let is installed on the bot­tom of the plate, thanks to all this, any cam­era can be quick­ly and con­ve­nient­ly fixed on a tri­pod.

Bought here Ana­logue here Bud­get mod­el

Sum­ming up, I want to say that this is an excel­lent tri­pod under $30, and in my sub­jec­tive opin­ion, even one of the best. It is easy to use, every­thing works clear­ly and with­out fail­ures. The tri­pod is great for begin­ner pho­tog­ra­phers. It has a wide func­tion­al­i­ty and main­tains the qual­i­ty of the prod­uct and mate­ri­als on top. I am per­son­al­ly very sat­is­fied with the pur­chase and can rec­om­mend the tri­pod and the sell­er. In the links left above there is almost the same mod­el from anoth­er man­u­fac­tur­er, per­haps it will inter­est you more, since the sell­er has dif­fer­ent col­ors of the prod­uct, and it is also pos­si­ble to deliv­er the goods from a ware­house in the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion. Well, that’s all dear read­ers, I hope I haven’t for­got­ten any­thing, if you have any ques­tions, wel­come to the com­ments. Thank you for your atten­tion.