Frogfish Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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I'll start by saying that I'm using both the Leofoto LS365C for general use (to / from sites in my car or on the metro) and Leofoto LS324C + extension for travel. Extremely happy with both (and the 4 Leofoto heads I now own).
I'll add that I also use a pano leveller however I prefer to buy these separately than have one built in - both for longevity and possibly quality though I can't state the later with any certainty as I've not owned a tripod with a built in pano leveller.
Anyway ... here is my standard Cut & Paste on the subject of tripods :
This is for the OP as most long time posters will already have seen this and either agreed or disagreed. Nothing new here so you can scroll on by 
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I'm going to throw this observation below into any discussion which descends into people recommending a big bucks investment (usually RRS or Gitzo) - especially when the OP has specifically requested lower priced options.
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The tripod is virtually the simplest of the major equipment purchases to design and make. It's hardly an engineering masterpiece that some punters and manufacturers both would have you believe. It does a job, and most well built tripods can do that job very well (look back to when wooden tripods were de rigueur and exposures were always long) ! Of course sticking a brand label (RRS, Gitzo etc.) on the side will enable you to triple/quadruple the price but that is far far away from a doubling/quadrupling of the performance.
I literally struggle to find an unsharp shot in over 15+ years of my 'on tripod' photography (NB. I use a tripod for the vast majority of my landscape work, and now astro, and with long exposures up to or exceeding 3 mins) and any showing vibration was almost certainly not due to tripod inadequacy but user-error (far & away the most likely cause for anyone). Shielding the camera/tripod from the elements (which I usually do with my body unless into a head wind) will make far (far far far) more difference to the result than a tripod x3 the price.
In fact there are more ways to improve your tripod performance than just buying a new (often expensive) tripod, these methods for starters will almost always make a far greater improvement :
a) Shielding (use your body or other implement)
b) Making a solid base for the tripod (on a beach setting into the sand, on a mountain-side adding rocks to the base for example, in a stream pushing the legs into the gravel) etc.
c) In towns - shooting in between large vehicles passing by and not shooting off of high vibration structures (which no tripod can cope with).
As for a tripod *that will last you 10 years*, well some people may indeed keep them that long, but we all know that the vast majority of photographers buy and sell gear whenever the next fad comes along or maybe because their circumstances/requirements have changed and they need another.
At least with a tripod that doesn't cost the best part of $1,000 I am never worried about loss/theft/damage aside from the inconvenience (not everyone is able, or feel it necessary, to buy insurance to cover them).
And if the worst comes to pass (theft/loss/damage) then I know I can buy a new tripod to the very latest specifications and still have paid (for two tripods) roughly 50-70% of what one Gitzo/RRS would have cost me (and which now resides in a thief's bag / at the bottom of a ravine/lake or requires expensive repairs).
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I'm currently (mostly) using the Leofoto Ranger LS-284C (I took a 3.5 min shot with it just a few days ago - photo was very sharp) and the Leofoto LS-365C, both are cracking tripods (of 4 that I own : the Leofotos, a very small Sirui and a large Manfrotto that I bought years ago). None of these tripods has ever let me down however I now use just the two Leofotos (one for multiday hiking and the other for everything else) which is far better than having just the one expensive tripod that doesn't suit every situation.
The Sirui & the Manfrotto have not been used for a long time. On my last trip to Tibetan-Sichuan I took the Leofoto LS-284C, it was superb and fitted the bill perfectly.
My advice would be to buy a tripod in the top 10 or 20 on The Center Column (website) rankings, dedicated for your use, but to avoid the over-priced tripods offering just a 10-15% benefit for a x3 to x4 price investment.
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