The Benro SC05K SpiderMan Tablepod Kit is designed to be small yet hold a small camera or phone and accessories. The design is for photographers and videographers to record themselves and use for virtual meetings. Let’s take a look at how it does.
The tabletop kit I received includes a Benro SC05 tripod, a FS20 panoramic ball head, a PU45 quick-release plate, and an Allen wrench. It also includes a phone holder, which I almost missed! Also, you can wrap these up in a nice padded drawstring pouch.
Note: Vlogsfan sent us the Benro SC05K SpiderMan Tablepod Kit to review and keep. However, this is a completely independent review. All thoughts about this tripod are our own.
Pros
- Seems well-built and well-machined
- ¼” accessory screw holes on two of the legs allows you to screw on accessories such as small LED lights, microphones, or monitors.
- Lightweight carbon fiber
- Easily allows you to position your camera very low to the surface
- Holds heavy weights solidly
Cons
- If you want to raise your ball head high above the surface, this tripod is not for you
- Because the legs are not segmented, they do not offer much flexibility for uneven surfaces
Benro SpiderMan Tablepod Kit — Technical specifications
All technical specifications for the Benro SpiderMan Tablepod Kit have been taken from the product listing page over at Benro.
- Weight：0.55lb/0.25kg
- Material: carbon fiber
- Warranty：3 Years
- Leg Sections：1 Sections
- Leg Lock Type：twist lock
- Min. Height：3.15in/8.8cm
- Max. Height：8.8in/19.3cm
- Max. Payload Capacity: 6.6lb/3 kg
- Leg angles: 35/60/85 degrees
Ball head
- Ballhead Model：FS20 panoramic head
- Quick Release Type：Arca-Swiss
- Quick Plate Safety Mechanism：Yes
- Base Mount Diameter：1.24in/3.15cm
- Ball Diameter：0.79in/2 cm
- Ball Weight：0.61lb/0.28kg
- Ball Max. Payload: 44.1lb/20 kg
- Ball Height：3.54in/9 cm
- Product Weight ：0.61lb/0.28kg
- Product list: tripod bag, tripod, L-shaped wrench, phone holder, drawstring bag
Benro SpiderMan Tablepod Kit — Ergonomics and build quality
The Benro SpiderMan Tablepod Kit has a compact and sturdy design. Its design is simple and no-frills.
The FS20 ball head allows for 360-degree rotation and 90-degree tilt. This makes it easy to adjust the camera angle and composition. The rotating adjustment is marked with a pan scale from 0º to 45º to 90º and then back to 45º and 0º, which is repeated to give the full 360º rotation.
The PU45 Arca-style quick release plate attaches to the bottom of your camera. This has safety end stop pins at either end and a three-way locking screw, including a foldout ring. This means you can crank it reasonably tight with just your hand, although you can certainly tighten it further with a screwdriver, which is always recommended.
Attachments
Interestingly, Benro includes a 1/4” -20 thread on two of its legs. You may use this to attach LED lights, microphones or other accessories.
You can also attach the included phone holder to the ball head. The phone holder can accommodate smartphones with a width of 5.8 cm to 10 cm, which makes it compatible with most smartphones on the market. The phone holder uses a spring-loaded mechanism to provide a secure grip on the phone.
Benro SpiderMan Tablepod Kit — Out in the field
Above: The smartphone holder and the 1/4″ accessory screw on one of the tripod legs.
The field, in this case, was the wilderness that is my office. It’s not quite as unpredictable as the Brazilian rainforest, but it would do for the test.
Ease of deployment
You can adjust the 35, 60, and 85-degree angles of the tripod legs by clicking a button on the top of each leg. Easy. The button feels solid and doesn’t wiggle.
The FS20 ball head feels like a miniature version of a good quality ball head you might use for night photography. You may attach the Arca-style quick release plate to the bottom of your camera. You may also use it to attach the camera holder. All of them work as you would expect and feel solid and well-machined.
Also, the kit includes a rather nice padded drawstring bag that seems like it’s made of neoprene. The bag does not have any separate spaces for the Allen wrench or anything else.
Loading up
Above: Abusing the tripod with a 4.52 lb/2.5 kg behemoth.
Just to make things fun, I decided to load this tripod up with some weight. I attached the brutal combination of a Pentax K-1 DSLR (1.1 kg/2.23 lb) and Pentax 15-30mm f/2.8 ultra wide lens (1.4 kg/2.29 lb) for a total of 2.5 kg/4.52 lbs. Yeeeeouch. This is getting close to the 3 kg/6.6 lb. maximum capacity. The Pentax combo is heavy and rather top-heavy. Tripod aficionados often feel that you should not load up your tripod with more than about a third of its maximum capacity. Here, I had twice that!
However, Benro designed this well. It’s also simple. There’s no center column. And you cannot extend the legs because, well, they’re made of one solid piece. Because of this, I should point out that the tripod will be less flexible on uneven surfaces. Benro definitely designed this for vlogging, self-recording on flat surfaces, Zoom or virtual meetings, offices and other indoor use. It should also be fine for backyards and beaches, but perhaps not so much for hiking in uneven, rocky surfaces.
The whole design is small and stable. I tapped on the tripod to check for vibrations. However, the tripod did not exhibit extended vibration, even with this giant amount of weight. This is due in part to the one-piece legs, but also because there is no center column. It’s safe to say that if it can hold a Pentax K-1 and giant 15-30mm lens, it’ll hold your small DSLR, mirrorless, or phone solidly.
By the way, did you notice from the specifications that the ball head has a maximum capacity of 44.1lb/20 kg? This ball head is not going sag on anything you put on these legs!
Part of the reason I used such a heavy camera was just to test in a semi-sadistic manner, just to see what happened. But the other reason is that I didn’t have any small LED lights or other accessories I could attach to the legs. You can be sure that if it holds this much weight, attaching relatively lightweight microphones and LED lights won’t even be close to an issue.
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