Product Description

Clamp and Table Tripod 1

- With ball and socket head
- B 1/4 camera screw
- Height 13 cm
- 2 screw-in legs
- Opens to 3.5 cm max., 145 g

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19294 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Hama
• Model: 4001
• Released on: 2003-11-06
• Dimensions: 17.72" h x 55.71" w x 90.55" l, .38 pounds

Customer Reviews

Good at clamping
I bought this clamp a few years ago to allow me to experiment with recording car journeys with my camera. For this purpose it works pretty well, and the camera points in whatever direction the car does - so the video goes up and down with each bump in the road. However, most people will probably clamp it to something that doesn't move - perhaps a table.

The metal rods shown in the picture are stored away inside the length of the body (there's a cap at the bottom that twists to reveal the compartment). The idea is to allow the tripod to be used on a flat surface without using the clamp - i.e. like a normal tripod - but I think you'd be better off buying one of the other mini-tripods for that purpose. I find it annoying that the bars fall out occasionally, but I haven't lost either of them yet.

The ball joint can be swivelled to a wide range of angles and is held in place by its screw fairly tightly. Finally, the clamp has a grove on the 'screw' end which is opposite a rubber pad - these work together and can hold on to suitable metal bars, etc. pretty well.

Lightweight bonus for your camera bag.
I have something very similar bought years ago and marked Kaiser rather than Hama. The only significant difference seems to be the position of the sockets for the legs - mine are on the screw-on cap for the compartment holding them. My one has three of these legs - this version uses the bottom of the clamp as one of the tripod legs, which may be less effective but I guess saves weight. I don't understand the other reviewer's point about them falling out. If you screw them in properly, they won't fall out when forming the tripod, and if you screw the cap on properly, they won't fall out of the compartment either.

What you get is two different ways of stabilising your camera, in a package that fits into a camera bag of moderate size (Lowepro Edit 120 in my case). If you align the ball & socket joint craftily for storage, you end up with something about 12.5 x 7.5 x 2.4 cm. The product dimensions of 230 x 141.5 x 45 cm are a crass mistake - 230 cm is nearly 8 feet!

It's nowhere near the quality of a proper tripod but it's tiny and can bridge the gap between a picture you want to take and a picture you can take.