A rather odd alternative:
I was just traveling with family to the rain forest in Ecuador, for some hiking in the jungle. Took a MF camera and back, and was going to take a traveling tripod, but at the last minute, borrowed someone's monopod instead, as faster, simpler and lighter. It was a Manfrotto alum one, 682B, longish, 3 section only (sorry -returned it and didn't get the model number). Found out it had a small set of tripod legs tucked in the bottom, 9" long that unscrew from inside the monopod. Turns out there wasn't enough light in the jungle for monopod use at ISO 200
Its not small, nor light, but its remarkable in another way: with a solid ball head on it (RRS), its heavy weight and long sections allow use as an in-fleld tripod far more usefully than one might imagine. The alum sections dampen vibration very nicely: with MLU, and a 16 second shutter delay, and no extension (resulting in a camera height about 3' above the ground), and no wind, even an 8 second exposure was possible. Truly. And that was just on earth. With about 10" more extension, about 1-2 second exposures, etc. Wobble in cantilevers increases (I think) by length cubed (things one thinks about while waiting for shutter release), so you tune height to desired shutter speed. Surprisingly, shooting at iso 100 in a darkish jungle was possible, with an oh-so gentle shutter release, and the long delay, but it did work. Its an alternative to tripod travel. Goes nicely over the shoulder as well, and can work as a monopod too. Its likely the carbon fiber one wouldn't dampen out wobble so nicely.
