It sounds silly, but nothing can be more frustrating than a photo-shoot spoiled by a tripod failure. You spend hours doing location scouting, you have excellent camera gear (including back-up camera bodies, spare media cards, an assortment of fancy lenses) coupled with your amazing artistic skills -- you hike up a small mountain to get a beautiful sunset image (alternately -- you have 50 people assembled for a group shot in a very dimly lit church or reception hall!)...and your tripod falls apart. YIKES! Whoooodathunkit???

Recently I noticed that one of my tripod legs was slipping at inopportune moments. I thought -- no big deal...I can fix this with an allen wrench or a screw-driver. WRONG! Turns out I needed a slim profile socket wrench to tighten down the faulty leg. Who would have thought that a $300 tripod would give me fits trying to find the right tool in my garage to fix the problem? (Yeah, duct tape would have worked...temporarily...LOL.)

Learn from my frustrating experience. Check your tripod for loose connections and find the right tool to tighten them. You know what they say...an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.