A decade ago, the Giotto’s company launched a series of Vitruvian tripods, named after Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing, The Vitruvian Man. As in the drawing, the legs swing upwards but, in the case of the Giotto’s tripods they swung up, adopting a vertically upright orientation. The trick was, by fully extending the centre column before swinging the legs up, the tripod head no longer extended beyond the length of the legs, making the carrying size smaller.
Another trick of Vitruvian tripods was that you could unscrew one of the tripod legs, detach the centre column, and join the two to use as a monopod, complete with ball head. Both facets of the design have been adopted in the majority of current travel tripods.…