There are a variety of good monopods and reasons to use them.

I use monopods because I like to be portable and nimble. Even shooting some video, mobility can be important and using a monopod can help be more steady while still giving you the ability to move.

Two recommendations:

For photography:
I recommend the manfrotto 685b – have had this for over a year and love it love it… I’m 6’2 and it is the right height with a bit to spare. I also put this simple head on it. I don’t use it much for swiveling, but i do love the quick release. There’s a quick video on youtube from Yuri – a great stock photographer who uses this same monopod.

For video:

The Manfrotto 561BHDV-1 Fluid Video Monopod and Head is quite popular (and I bought one myself). It has a single direction video head (it doesn’t by itself rotate). So the head gives you more ‘filmic’ abilities than a photo head as I use on the 685.

If you’re going to get one monopod for both photography and video, I’d get the 561

Here’s a demo from @stillmotion on the 561:

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