I have a Slik 614CF carbon fibre tripod. I like it very much as it is extremely lightweight and compact.
After my recent trip, I observed that my tripod has now suffered plenty of scratches and bruises to its legs, mainly due to my carelessness in the field.
So after my trip, I decided to assemble a project to:
1. protect the tripod legs.
2. add a shoulder strap to the tripod for easy transportation.
The main criteria of this project is cost effectiveness as I wanted to spend a minimum amount of money.
So after giving some thoughts to the project, I came up with the following ingredients:
1. A tripod. (this is rather obvious)
2. 2 no. neck straps similar to those used for identification tags - free for me as I used the ones given to me free during red bull air race 2008
3. 1 no ring (as in those rings found in key chains) - free for me as I salvaged from my existing keychains
4. 1 no shoulder strap (you can use any strap; I bought 1 set for A$9.50)
5. 3 rolls of hand grip wraps for badminton rackets (or similar) - I bought them for A$8.50.
6. Some needles and thread - free for me as my wife has them in the house.
Rather than going into details of how I did it and all, here are some pictures, which I hope can speak louder than words.
The top assembly
The bottom assembly.
Tripod legs are now protected, somewhat.
Another view of the tripod legs
Tripod and shoulder strap