Tilta, a company more well-known for making cages & accessories and hacking Blackmagic cameras, has released a tripod. Three, actually. They’re the 2-Stage Carbon Fibre and the 3-Stage Carbon Fibre Tilta CT08 and CT12 tripods.
The three tripods sport a 75mm bowl on top, and all three tripods come with a Tilta 75mm Cine Fluid Head. The CT08 and CT12 have payloads of 8kg and 12kg, respectively, allowing for some very heavy setups.
Tilta CT12 – A beefy tripod, payload up to 12kg
The Tilta CT12 is the biggest of the three tripods. It’s a one-touch, two-stage carbon fibre tripod. It has a 100mm bowl at the top for taking large heads but comes with a 100mm to 75mm adapter and the Tilta 75mm cine fluid head on top.
It can handle loads of up to 12kg (~26.4lb), so you can stick some beefy camera rigs on this thing. And you can even use them in the dark, thanks to the light-assisted bubble level. It offers +90/-60 degrees of tilt, 360 degrees of pan, with drag adjustments for both.
The one-touch, two-stage carbon fibre legs mean you have three segments that each unlock with the flick of a switch at the top of each leg. It’s not really “one-touch” so much as “one-touch per leg”, but at least there aren’t individual adjusters for each segment.
Tilta CT08 – 8kg payload, still beefy
It’s a little unfair to say that the CT08 is a light-duty version of the CT12 because it’s still a pretty solid tripod. It can handle loads up to 8kg (~17.6lb) and comes in two flavours. There’s a one-touch, two-stage version like above, and there’s also a three-stage version.
Basically, the two-stage tripod has a more traditional video tripod leg design, while the three-stage tripod looks more like a photography tripod with single legs. The two designs are actually quite similar to the Manfrotto Fast Twin Leg (buy here) and Manfrotto Fast Single Leg (buy here) tripods.
They both feature a 75mm bowl and come with the Tilta cine fluid head. It appears to be a different one than the CT12 above, however, as tripod plate compatibility says Arca Swiss, not Manfrotto PL, like the CT12. Seems like an odd choice, but maybe there’s a mistake in the listing.
Price and Availability
The Tilta CT08 is available to pre-order now for $999 for the two-stage and $899 for the three-stage. The Tilta CT12 is available to pre-order now for $1,199. Items are expected to ship in the coming weeks.
