Armand, have you looked at these? Just got an email on them. They seem to be new.
http://www.mefoto.com/air
Looked good until I saw the weight, the lightest is 2 lbs (910g).
Here is what I have so far, with too much time on my hands I even took some pictures. The lightest ballhead that I have is a Sirui C10 which is decent in terms of holding power and weighs 189g,
In order, from left to right:
- Sirui T-025 with the center column sawed off and the rest glued together (you can buy the newer version, T-025x, and with the short column it should be quite similar): 589g - with ballhead 778g
- Sirui T-1205x: 906g (change the center column to the short one and I save another 50g or so)
- Gitzo 1541T: 986g
- Manfrotto 190CXPRO4 (my first tripod, probably the most stable): 1337g
The Gitzo 1541T is my go to most of the times unless I want to save weight and then I take the smaller Sirui. The Sirui T-1205x I left in a trip and missed the deadline to return it. There is nothing wrong with it but the main thing it has on the Gitzo is the most compacted weight as it's not that much lighter; it will fit on the bottom of a backpack when I'm travelling and don't want to advertise that I have cameras with a tripod on the outside.
So bottom line I need something that's clearly lighter than my current combo at 780g, roughly under 450g. By going with a hefty table tripod sized one I should be gaining in stability for windy conditions also.