The AirHead Trinity will be sold on its own and bundled with 3 Legged Thing’s Punks 2.0 video tripod kits
(Image credit: 3 Legged Thing)
The world is awash with ball heads, but there aren’t too many pan and tilt tripod heads to choose from, especially compact video heads. The AirHed Trinity is not just for video, though, being aimed at all kinds of content creators, wildlife watchers, sports fans and more.
It is especially suited to video, however, with a smooth fluid panning axis and a spring-weighted tilt axis, making camera movements much smoother and more controlled.
The best tripods usually ship with ball heads, a much more common design that's also compact and quick to use, but ball heads don't offer the same controlled movement along a single axis as pan and tilt heads and are less well suited to video.
The AirHed Trinity comes with an Arca Swiss compatible QR plate and a detachable handle. It's available in two finishes – Lava or Darkness (shown here). (Image credit: 3 Legged Thing)
3 Legged Thing AirHed Trinity features
Designed as an alternative to the regular AirHed Neo ball head offered with 3 Legged Thing’s Punks tripod range, the AirHed Trinity has a regular 3/8-inch threaded socket so it could actually be used on any tripod. It’s equipped with a standard 38mm Arca Swiss quick-release plate with a simple locking screw, so you could swap out the regular square plate for a longer 3LT Ultra plate or Cine plate, for example, for better for-and-aft balancing with longer lenses or heavier gear.
The best video tripods can be pretty expensive and often beyond the scope and needs of everyday content creators, so cheaper, lighter and simpler alternatives will always be welcome.
Perhaps the key feature of the AirHed Trinity is its size – or lack of it. It’s just 8cm tall and 9cm wide (without the included panning handle attached), but still has a maximum weight capacity of 5kg, which is well beyond the average content creator’s camera/kit combo and enough to handle even large telephoto lenses.
You can use the AirHed Trinity with or without its removable 20cm panning arm. This can be adjusted for angle and locks into position. The Trinity also has separate pan and tilt locks, and when these are slackened off, there is still a smooth resistance, or ‘drag’, for camera movements.
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The AirHed Trinity has a maximum payload of 5kg, so should cope easily with the average mirrorless camera/lens combination. (Image credit: 3 Legged Thing)
AirHed Trinity availability and price
The AirHed Trinity is available on its own right now, and will be offered with Punks Video kits with Corey 2.0, Travis, Patti 2.0, Billy 2.0, and Brian 2.0 tripods from May 14. It will also be offered with will also be bundled with Punks and Legends monopod kits with the Docz foot stabiliser, to create monopod ‘superkit’. The standalone price for the AirHed Trinity is $89.99 / £79.99 (about AU$138).
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Rod is an independent photography journalist and editor, and a long-standing Digital Camera World contributor, having previously worked as DCW's Group Reviews editor. Before that he has been technique editor on N-Photo, Head of Testing for the photography division and Camera Channel editor on TechRadar, as well as contributing to many other publications. He has been writing about photography technique, photo editing and digital cameras since they first appeared, and before that began his career writing about film photography. He has used and reviewed practically every interchangeable lens camera launched in the past 20 years, from entry-level DSLRs to medium format cameras, together with lenses, tripods, gimbals, light meters, camera bags and more. Rod has his own camera gear blog at fotovolo.com but also writes about photo-editing applications and techniques at lifeafterphotoshop.com
