Welcome to our Dolica la600 review, we keep seeing more and more people reaching out for advice on the tripod as so many people are looking to pick up a cheap travel tripod to take with them on their travels. Being an entry level, budget friendly tripod, you have to give it concessions on its features and performance but in all honesty, it is a decent bit of kit.
If you are looking to improve your travel photography or capture better photographs for your Instagram or other social media channels when traveling then the Dolica la600 could be a good option to pick up. All that said, let’s take a deeper look at the tripod.
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Table of Contents
The Tripod Head
Let’s start with the tripod head, to keep costs down, the tripod comes with a simple but easy to use ball head design with a bubble level included to help you ensure that your tripod is level before you choose to mount your camera rig on it. The head of the Dolica la600 offers a stable platform that will easily secure your camera rig and keep it in place while capturing photographs or recording video.
One thing that we would like to point out is that being a ball head tripod, doing any kind of slow pan video recording or capturing any kind of panoramic photograph can be a bit of a pain. You are able to work around this by picking up a decent little pan head tripod mount (Click here to check for product prices and availability) that will provide all the planning and panoramic functionality that you could ever need.
Now, some people seem to avoid picking up the pan head mounts as they think that they will be hard to fit. Thankfully, they have been specifically designed to be as quick and easy to use as possible. Essentially, they mount onto the mounting screw on the tripod basically becoming the new tripod head and you then mount your camera to the mounting screw on the pan head mount and go about your photography or videography as required. Additionally, once mounted to your tripod, you can leave it on and never take it off again if you prefer saving you time in the future.
In our opinion, the main drawback of the Dolica la600 is definitely the quick release plate but this can actually work to your advantage. To keep costs low, Dolica decided to go with their own proprietary quick release plate rather than license the design of the Manfrotto one.
If you are an amateur photographer or videographer who is looking to pick up one budget-friendly travel tripod then use one single camera with it then you are in luck as it lets you save a little money. You attach your camera on the quick release plate and then mount and unmount your camera as required from the tripod.
On the flipside of this though, if you are planning to use multiple cameras with the tripod then this can be a total nightmare as at the time of writing at least, spare quick release plates for the Dolica la600 very hard to find. The best way to work around this is to probably have your main camera attatched to the quick release plate so you can quickly mount and unmount it as required and then manually screw other cameras to the tripod as required.
The Tripods Center Column
The image above shows the O-ring at the base of the center column on the Dolica la600 tripod and in all fairness, for a budget tripod we are a fan of this solution. It helps keep the tripods price tag as low as possible while still providing some kind of counterweight capability that many tripods at this price point miss out.
A simply O-ring is very cheap while also allowing you to clip a cheap carabiner hook (Click here to check for product prices and availability) on to to the O-ring and then add a counterweight to it as required. This essentially keeps the cost of the tripod low for everyone while ensuring you can add a counterweight to it if you are planning on using the tripod outside in windy conditions and we would be surprised if other brands don’t rip this simple concept off and add it to their own tripods in the future.
Edit – The most recent variant of the Dolica la600 comes with an actual counterweight hook as standard rather than an O-ring.
The center column and the legs of the tripod are made predominantly from a great aluminum alloy that keeps the Dolica la600 as lightweight as possible. At the same time, it ensures that the tripod is both robust as well as stable when set up offering some of the best image stabilization available at this price point.
The Legs Of The Tripod
The legs on the Dolica la600 are heavy duty using the flip lock leg lock system that has a proven history of being very efficient and the rubber shoes at the base of the tripod offer a none slip base even in wet conditions. Let us reassure you that although the legs feel cheap, they perform well and will keep your tripod upright and your camera rig stable without issue.
When fully extended, the legs of the tripod will provide you with a maximum operational height of sixty inches making it ideal for the vast majority of travel photography situations that you can think of.
We feel that adding the Dolica la600 to your collection of camera accessories will be a good investment and provide you with a tripod that will be able to provide some quick, easy, budget-friendly image stabilization for you while on your travels for many years to some.
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The video below offers an additional third-party, independent review for the Dolica la600 to offer our readers an independent opinion of the product.
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