If you want to place a camera on a branch, signpost, railing or whatnot, there are already mini tripods with bendy legs that you can use. The Mambapod takes a different and in some ways better approach, as it sports a clamp which is integrated into one of its legs.
Currently the subject of a Kickstarter campaign, the Mambapod is made by Taiwanese company Silence Corner.
The device can be used as a regular mini-pod, with its three legs spread out to stand on a flat surface. It can also be used as a monopod-like camera handle, with its legs folded in together and grasped in one hand. Bendy-legged tripods aren't as well-suited to these applications, as their legs can be difficult to straighten out, and they aren't rigid.
The fun part, though, is the clamp that's built into the underside of one of the Mambapod's aluminum legs.
To use that clamp, you start by folding out its two jaws – one at the foot-end of the leg and one at the head-end – along with a lever that's located at the foot-end. You then place the tripod so that the branch or other item is between the jaws.
From there, it's just a matter of spinning the lever to move the foot-end jaw in towards its head-end counterpart. You keep doing so until the jaws are firmly gripped on the branch, etc. Wrapping the legs of a bendy-legged tripod around such an item likely wouldn't result in as tight of a grip.
Each of the Mambapod's jaws features a concave indentation that allows the clamp to snug itself around round-sided items. If the object has flat sides, a triangular appendage at the end of each jaw can be flipped inwards to provide a flat point of contact.
The tripod can be used in either a vertical or horizontal orientation, although the clamp will be under more strain when the camera is hanging off to one side as opposed to sitting overhead or hanging below. For that reason, the device has a load capacity of 5 kg (11 lb) when used horizontally, but just 2 kg (4.4 lb) when used vertically.
The whole thing reportedly tips the scales at 320 g (0.7 lb), not counting the optional ball head.
Some of the Mambapod's other features include a 3/8th-inch base screw that can be taken out and reversed to present a quarter-inch end, along with six additional quarter-inch screw holes on its legs for mounting accessories such as lights or smartphones.
Assuming everything works out, a pledge of US$129 will get you a Mambapod of your own, with $179 required for a tripod/ball head combo (users can utilize a third-party head if they wish). The planned prices are $179 and $244, respectively.
You can see the device in action, in the following video.
Source: Kickstarter
