Carry Your Tripod and Scope at the Same Time!
by Darren Rees
Carrying the tripod and scope ensemble can be awkward. Balancing the fully extended tripod over the shoulder, using the arm as a counterweight, is fine for a while, but it quickly becomes tough on the shoulder and hinders binocular use. You can carry both scope and tripod in a knapsack, but this can be time consuming to set up, and that distant peep might have flown by the time you're ready to take a closer look.
I have devised a shoulder strap solution to this problem. I use a Kowa TSN-1 on a Slik D2 tripod, but the shoulder strap can be adapted for any scope/tripod combination. Using a heavy-duty camera/shoulder strap with a non-slip pad, attach one end of the strap to the tripod head. Attach the other end of the strap to the base of the central stem. To allow for 360-degree rotation, you can add two links to the end of a spring-loaded hook. Just remember that too many links can be noisy.
