Really Right Stuff Tripods - Best tripods ever?

Many photographers who take their craft or hobby serious sooner or later have to decide which tripod to buy. Even with insanly high Iso values in modern cameras beyond the million mark a tripod is still the dirty little secret for sucessfull photography. Yes you can make pictures in dimm lit areas without a tripod now, but the picture quality will always be worse than with base Iso. Especially in landscape photography you normally seek for optimal sharpness, so no camera shake, no grain from high Iso and also and often forgotten: maximum depth of field. You need to stop the lens down to get that and also to get sharp corners, almost no lens is good wide open. An one sec exposure with f11 at 100 Iso is common in a forest for example, at day not at dawn or dusk!

also for "selfies" a tripod can be useful (South Iceland)

I have used a lot of tripods in my 30+ years as a photographer. From cheap Slik aluminium tripods as a student to Manfrotto (Bogen) and to Gitzo. 
The Gitzo Carbon Fiber was a disappointment, after a year a leg fell off because the plastic slider inside was broken. I did get repair parts fast, but the construction itself whith cheap plastic inside is certainly not what you would expect from such an expensive tripod. So I sold it and do not recomend them.

An article from Luminious Landscape brought me to the tripods of Really Right Stuff. I knew them for their excellent arca swiss style L-Clamps. So I bought the TVC 34L with L for Large as it has a height of 174 cm and a TVC 33 with a height of 149 cm.
These heights are without central columns which these tripods do not have. And this is a good thing, a central column is almost useless, as it is unstable from the beginning.
With prices around 1000.-$ these tripods are no bargains at all. But are the worth it? So far with good use over the last few years the worked well with almost no issues. But the are not perfect. First I hade to use Loctite 243 to get the leg screws permanently fixed in that position I wanted them, otherwise the come loose over time. But this is a common problem with all tripods and RRS replied to me that they do not fix that themselves so that the photographer can adjust the stiffness of the legs to their needs - Ok that makes sense in a way, but they could supply for that price a small bottle of Loctite 243 with instructions how to use that.

The other thing I do not like are the rubber feet at the bottom, very big and broad, so maybe good on Sand, but too heavy in my opinion. I prefer the combination of rubber feet with spikes inside. I had such spikes from Gitzo which fitted nicely and got another one from a vendor at Amazon.de - much cheaper than the Gitzo but perfect for my use.

right from the rubber cap (screwed on the spike) you see black "Sugru" fitted over the metal barrel, if the leg is extended the metal barrels would otherwise clunk together with an awful sound.

the spike is good on rocky and icy ground

left the original rubber feet from RRS which has 40 g a piece, right the cheap, lighter and more versatile from the company "Mengs" I bought via Amazon

Another small thing I had to optimise: The hook under the plate (for the tripod head) is in my opinion too "closed", there is not much space left to get a cord over it, so I shortened this with a metal saw.

So while the RRS tripods are really good, they are not perfect. And the price hurts. 

For cheaper alternatives I can recomend the Slik carbon tripods. They were pioneers with carbon fiber tripods and the first small carbon tripod I bought from that company is still working after 20 years of use!  I do use at the moment the Pro 634 CF for hiking quite often. While this Tripod has a center column, it is a two part design. You can unscrew the longer section, which is necessary if you want to use the tripod at ground level. For a lightweight head I can recomend the brand Sunwayfoto (Ballhead FB-36IIDDHi + Panning Clamp DDH-02). 

Another brand I started to use is Feisol, the Tournament Ct-3442 is a medium sized tripod good for travelling. Because of the 180 degrees rotating legs it gets quite short and protects the ballhead. The hook can be unscrewed and the tripod goes nicely down to ground level. It has a working height of 141 cm (no center column!) and weight is 1140 gramms. Together with the great Arca Swiss monoball p0 the exact weight is 1500 gramms.