24.07.2015

Manfrotto Walking Poles: giving your trekking photos wings

24.07.2015

Manfrotto Walking Poles: giving your trekking photos wings

There are ever more cyclists and ever fewer walkers but, every time we get the chance to escape to the mountains and get back in touch with Nature for a few hours or days, we get our walking shoes on, Manfrotto Offroad Poles in hand, and set off for a reinvigorating hike.

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The Dolomites are one of our favourite destinations and, although the “tourist traffic” on the paths and forest tracks is now significant in the summer months, their charm remains unchanged during the less popular periods, particularly in the autumn and the spring!

Anyway, let’s get to the subject of this post: the new walking poles that we’ve been using in recent months. A pair of walking poles are an essential aid during a mountain hike: they help to push you uphill and improve your stability going downhill, giving your arms the possibility of relieving your legs of some of the hard work.

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The Manfrotto walking poles, produced in partnership with Fizan, are excellent tools for outdoor activities, whose detailed features we will discuss below; however, they also have a second purpose, one that has a lot more to do with photography. On the top of one of the poles, a rubber cap protects the screw mount attachment for your camera, which transforms the pole into a handy monopod, ideal for action and compact cameras but that can also easily hold the weight of a reflex camera with a lens (up to 2.5 kg). All you have to do is remove the cap, screw on your camera and find the perfect location for the best photographs… that’s all there is to it!

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This dual function allows us our hiker side to optimize the weight we have to carry and, at the same time, avoid conflict with our photographer side, by providing a readily-available and essential tool for great quality photographs.

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Returning to the outdoor features, the poles are made of aluminium, so are a very light 400 g. Thanks to their compact size, when closed up they can be easily hooked on to an Offroad backpack, choosing either on the back or on the side. In our case, we left the poles attached to our bags on the easiest parts of our treks or when we wanted to have our hands free to do something else, for example on particularly tricky rocky parts on the paths of the Dolomites.

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When using the poles, you can adjust the three sections according to your needs, with an extension of over 130 cm. The locking mechanism is quick and easy to use: all you have to do is twist the smaller sections anticlockwise to loosen them, adjust the length and then lock in place by twisting clockwise. You can find notches on the various aluminium tubes indicating height and maximum possible extension, over which the tubes come apart… if you find yourself with the pole in two bits in your hand, don’t worry, you haven’t broken it! Instead, they are made like that deliberately: easy to take apart and put back together, making them very practical to clean.

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Personally, we have only used the Manfrotto Offroad walking poles as they are, without any of the accessories provided: the rubber feet to protect the point – suitable for hard surfaces such as tarmac or rock – or the baskets – useful for snow-covered ground.

Ultimately, after just a few months of use, we are already in love with our Manfrotto Walking Poles, which perfectly fit our idea of the ideal product: useful, light, innovative and, above all, suitable for both outdoor activities and photography!

Leo and Vero

Leo and Vero are two tireless travellers who love to discover the world by bicycle. After ten months cycling through Southeast Asia, they returned to Italy, but still dedicate their every spare moment to cycling, travelling and photography. They have travelled far and wide but are convinced that the best journey is always the one they have yet to make… “Because travelling is to remember the past, live the present and dream of the future.”

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