Painter poles are great because they are mass manufactured to keep cost down, and you may even have one in your garage. This allows photographers to get started taking elevated photographs at low cost. Thus, they have a lot of advantages. However, if you are willing to spend a few extra dollars, a Wonderpole® fiberglass pole can be a great investment for the following reasons:

• Strength - The Wonderpole® poles are designed to be strong and flex less. This translates into a safer rig, because the pole does not wobble as much while you are handling it.
• Height - Because they are stiffer and more manageable, you can handle a taller pole more easily.
• DSLRs - For years we used our DSLR on a painter's pole, but that's because we had learned how to operate the pole safely (after having crashed a camera). Because our DSLR camera rig is quite expensive, we now place it only on our Wonderpole®.
• Collapsed Size - The standard three section painter pole (8-24 ft) goes to 8 feet. If you have a standard mid-sized car, you can slide the pole through the ski hole in the back seat. The 21 foot Wonderpole® collapses to just 5 feet, allowing you to place it in the back seat!
•Easily Available - As an authorized distributor, you will get your Wonderpole® as fast and as easily as your Pole Pixie equipment!
• Good looking - The black Wonderpole® looks like a camera pole.

Our Test - We compared our 8-24 foot Mr. Longarm painter pole to our 5-21 ft black Wonderpole®. We extended each to approximately 18.5 feet, which is a typical height for many of our real estate photo sessions (because we shoot leval at the roof line). On each pole we placed indentical equipment: a Pole Pixie Pro Adapter plus a 2.5 pound weight wrapped around a standard tall boy extender for a total combined weight of just over 3 pounds. Our reason for three pounds was because a typical point and shoot with tilt mount and resting plate is about 2 pounds, and a DSLR with resting plate and tilt mount is 4 pounds or more. Conclusions As you can see in the photo, the yellow fiberglass section of the painter pole is much less stiff than the Wonderpole® and flexes even before reaching my hands. That deflection continues with the aluminum sections, and clearly shows the difference with the much stouter and stiffer Wonderpole®. If we had doubled the weight to 6 pounds (approximately the weight of our DSLR rig), the difference would have even been greater. Note: Sorry for the smudge on the image! The gray skies indicate that it was blowing and drizzling when we took the photo, and some tiny drops of water got on the lens. We did not see it on the image until getting back into the office!