Unless you are lucky enough to employ the services of a porter, packing and ultimately carrying a tripod and head is a nuisance.  Even when you spend the extra money to buy a strong and light weight carbon fiber tripod, the head will still be very heavy.

Unfortunately you cannot skimp here.  Buy a tripod and head suited for the weight of your camera with your largest lens – and then some.  If you’ve purchased a tripod that fits comfortably into your luggage, then you’ve bought the wrong one (hahaha!).  Also, the more sections in a tripod’s leg, the more wobbly the tripod will be.  We purchased our large REI roller bags specifically for the minimum collapsed length of our tripods without the heads attached.

Dianna will not agree with me on this, but I recommend using a tripod and head as much as possible.  The most obvious use for a tripod is when you must, or want to shoot, at slow shutter speeds.  And because you are trying to eliminate camera shake, use a remote shutter release and remove your camera strap so it doesn’t flap in the breeze.  A less obvious reason to use a tripod and head is that I find it helps me to slow down so I can pay even more attention to achieving tack sharp focus and how the photo is composed.

The tripod is very much like a third hand.  It completely frees me up to handle my filters, and allows me to do a thorough check of the histogram and replay with my Hoodman LCD Eye Viewer.  Speaking of the Hoodman viewer, read the directions and make sure you fit it to your eye with the diopter adjustment.

Since you will likely be in mud, sand, salt water and more, make sure you clean your tripod regularly.  There’s nothing more frustrating than being in the field with gritty tripod legs that do not extend smoothly.  This may sound kinky, but shower with your tripod.  Run water on it, in it, extend and collapse the legs.  Scrub the mud off and make sure there’s no more grit.  Stand it up and let it dry, spray it with an Armor All-like product, and wipe it down.

Dianna and I each use the Manfrotto 410 Jr Geared Head.  It allows you precise control of your camera by all three individual axes.  The specs say this head can support 11 lbs (5 kg).  I find this works for our Canon 5D Mk II with 70-22mm f/2.8 lens and Lee filter set.  It is a great head, but be careful not to bang any of the three adjustment knobs as it can damage the gears.  This lesson was learned first-hand!