I have owned more tripod/head combos than I like to think about. Slik, Manfrotto, Vanguard, Benro, Cullman and more. I always thought Gitzo was too expensive and probably not worth it. So I managed to tell myself that I did not need that much quality and went for the cheaper alternatives. It is also easy to say that you donīt care about some extra weight, but in the end you probably do. After a long life with lots of poor buys, I now only have Gitzo tripods (3) and monopods (2). It sounds like a series-2 would fit your requirements. They are great tripods. Light, very stable, easy to set up and they look great.

But stay away from their ball heads. There are at least three reasons. 1: They are expensive, 2: They are not very functional and have a very annoying (and proprietary) locking mechanism and 3: They do not support Arca swiss plates.

The remaining problem then is your budget. The best advice I can think of is to hang on to the one you have a little longer, eat bread and drink water for another month and wait until you can get the right stuff.

There was a long and interesting thread about tripod/ballhead some time ago: http://community.the-digital-picture...ead.php?t=7067

/Eldar