The only real thing I can say is that unless you are using a really light bodied Slr and lens,,,Monopods and Trekking poles do not make good stablizing devices no matter what the brand...For people with small point and shoots or a small slr with nothing more than a 50mm lens they may work fine,,,I have used many versions in the past and trying to hold both the pole and the camera still at the same time proves to be more trouble than it is worth....I typically Backpack with 3 slr bodies and lenses ranging from 18mm- 800mm everything from about 300 mm up is just simply too large for a monopod in my opinion and I have never gotten good results out of one and I have been shooting for more than 15 yrs...My ultimate advice is look into the ultralight Titanium tripods....Manfrotto and Gitzo have some really nice ones that you'll never know is there....Also take a bit of cord so you can tie a rock to the tripod to weight it down when shooting in windy conditions,,,They are so light they will blow away...