Created by James Ryan Carssow © 2009
A tripod is an essential tool of any good photographer. If you have a new camera, especially a DSLR, and are wondering what accessory to buy next, a quality tripod should top your list (followed soon after by a camera-brand external flash).
Why do I need a tripod?
To take photos of landscapes, sunsets, etc. at the peak times of beautiful natural light when you will need to utilize shutter speeds that are too slow for hand-holding your camera. This is the number one most important reason to own a tripod. You will MISS the shot of a lifetime as the sun sets and the sky explodes with orange color if you don’t have a tripod.
Tell me the five best landscape or sunset photos you’ve ever seen and I’ll bet you the cost of your camera that every single one of them was taken with the camera mounted on a tripod.
To take “macro” photos of tiny objects up close. Because of the extremely small apertures (f16, f22, f32) needed to get adequate depth of field in macro photography, the appropriate shutter speed may be too slow to hand-hold your camera.
To take photos of large groups of people. In these situations it is often best for the photographer to compose the shot and focus the camera, then take his eyes out of the viewfinder to scan the group and wait for the moment that everyone is smiling and looking at the camera to finally fire the shutter (a wired or wireless remote shutter release is also helpful here).
To take photos with yourself in them. Please don’t rest your $500 DSLR on the hood of your car or some flat surface in order to take a photo of you and your soul mate together in frontrandom of some iconic place on your vacation. This is how nice cameras get broken or stolen.
To take photos that will be digitally “stitched” together to form a panoramic view. Try doing this once without a tripod and once with. You’ll use a tripod every time after you see the difference in the results.
To take time elapse exposures of stars at night.
To take photos of cityscapes at night
To take photos of small objects to sell on eBay
To take photos of rivers and water falls in which the water appears to be “flowing” in the photo (you need shutter speeds of slower than 1/15th of one second to do this)
To take photos of sleeping babies (or husbands) indoors without flash
Basically … to take photos of any stationary subject in dim ambient light.
What kind of tripod to buy
This is a question with an easy or a complicated answer, depending on your point of view. The easy answer is buy a tripod that best fits your camera and how and where you like to photograph. The complicated answer is that there are hundreds of choices and prices ranging from $25 to well over $1,000. So here are some tips:
Always try out a tripod in person with YOUR camera before buying. This doesn’t mean you
can’t order a tripod over the internet or find a great deal on eBay, but try to test the same or a very similar tripod at a local photography store or from a photographer friend who already owns one. You don’t want to buy a tripod unseen only to realize once you receive it that it doesn’t work well with your camera.
Make sure the tripod is sturdy enough to hold your camera (and lens, flash etc.) steady in all
conditions and at all angles. If you have a heavy professional or semi-professional camera and/or lens, then you’ll need more than a $50 plastic tripod from Sunpak, Velbon, or Slik. But if you have a relatively small and light consumer-level DSLR, then one of these inexpensive tripods will work well.
Make sure the tripod is lightweight enough for YOU to carry it with you. The cliché amongst
photographers is that a cheap lightweight tripod that you actually have WITH YOU is 1000
times better than the heavy and expensive tripod that is sitting at home or in the trunk of your car.
Make sure the tripod “head”, the maneuverable contraption upon which the camera sits, is strong enough to support the weight of your camera and largest lens and a flash. Also make sure it can maneuver in every conceivable direction and that it locks down tight once your desired position is achieved. Make sure the methods of locking and unlocking the head’s movement are easy for you to use. Some are much more complicated and cumbersome than others.
Don’t buy a tripod that is intended for video cameras. The manner in which the tripod head rotates and “pans” is built for video cameras and not still cameras and will not be as maneuverable as you need for a still camera.
Make sure the tripod is flexible enough for your needs. For example, if you like to take macro photos of flowers and other things low to the ground, then your tripod needs to be able to flare its legs out so your camera can be positioned low to the ground. Good professional tripods can hold the camera anywhere from 6 inches to 6 feet above the ground. Cheap, plastic, consumer tripods can only go “as low” as their legs will collapse to when folded up for travel (usually 18 to 24 inches off the ground minimum).
If you own or use more than one camera, then you’ll definitely want a tripod with quick-release plates that screw into the bottom of each camera and then latch onto the tripod. This way you can quickly change from one camera to the other on the same tripod without having to unscrew the tripod screw each time. This is also safer and better for the camera (even if you only own one) because you’re screwing a small lightweight plate into the bottom of your camera, and not the entire tripod.
If you’re using a very large lens to photograph sporting events (something that costs at least
$1500 new) then you need a monopod, not a tripod. If you’re not using such a lens, then you do not need a monopod to photograph sports. If you mount your camera, and not your lens, to the monopod, then you don’t need a monopod.
Tips for photographing with a tripod
Tripods are really quite self-explanatory. Just adjust the legs to the height you want, then rotate, tilt, and pan the head until your camera is positioned properly. But there are a few tricks to know when using a tripod:
If you need a tripod for your photograph, it’s likely because of slower shutter speeds that would cause “camera shake” and blur from hand-holding the camera. If this is the case, then often even the motion of pressing the shutter button can blur the photo slightly even if mounted on a tripod.
There are two solutions to this:
Use a remote shutter release
Use the self-timer built into your camera. Any shaking motion caused by your finger depressing the shutter button will fade after a few seconds. So set your self-timer to 10 seconds, press the shutter, and the photo will be taken – shake free – 10 seconds later.
Many DSLRs have “grid lines” inside the viewfinder that can be turned on with a menu function (check your user manual). These lines are great for helping you level the horizon of a landscape photo so that the photo does not appear “tilted” if the horizon is not straight across. Don’t rely solely on any bubble level built into your tripod, as the horizon itself may not be perfectly level.
If the ground you’re working on is uneven, then adjust the legs of your tripod to compensate.
Don’t extend all three legs all the way and then let the tripod lean on the uneven ground. There’s a good reason the three legs adjust height independently, and this is it.
Try using your tripod at different heights to get new perspectives on typical subjects. Don’t be afraid to work with your knees, butt, or even belly on the ground.
For taking tripod-mounted photographs with the camera tilted to vertical orientation, it is best to use specialized camera-rotating brackets (available at good photography stores or online) that keep the camera’s center of gravity directly over the center of the tripod. Using the basic tilt function built into many tripods allows the camera to lean to one side of the tripod and could, in some cases, cause the camera to shake enough to blur a photo or even cause the tripod and camera to fall to the ground.
BE CAREFUL when using a tripod or monopod as they often give a false sense of security that your camera is completely stable and secure. One wrong spin or turn and you can knock over your tripod, sending your expensive camera to an early death on the hard ground below. SCARY
STORY – a former photographer colleague of mine once rested his monopod mounted camera and lens on a stadium wall for a brief second while digging another memory card out of his pocket. The top-heavy combination quickly slid off the wall, crashing to the concrete below. Both his $5,000 Nikon D2X camera and $6,000 Nikkor 200mm f2.0 lens were ruined – even the Nikon factory could not repair either.
A tripod is an essential tool of any good photographer. If you have a new camera, especially a DSLR, and are wondering what accessory to buy next, a quality tripod should top your list (followed soon after by a camera-brand external flash).
Why do I need a tripod?
To take photos of landscapes, sunsets, etc. at the peak times of beautiful natural light when you will need to utilize shutter speeds that are too slow for hand-holding your camera. This is the number one most important reason to own a tripod. You will MISS the shot of a lifetime as the sun sets and the sky explodes with orange color if you don’t have a tripod.
Tell me the five best landscape or sunset photos you’ve ever seen and I’ll bet you the cost of your camera that every single one of them was taken with the camera mounted on a tripod.
To take “macro” photos of tiny objects up close. Because of the extremely small apertures (f16, f22, f32) needed to get adequate depth of field in macro photography, the appropriate shutter speed may be too slow to hand-hold your camera.
To take photos of large groups of people. In these situations it is often best for the photographer to compose the shot and focus the camera, then take his eyes out of the viewfinder to scan the group and wait for the moment that everyone is smiling and looking at the camera to finally fire the shutter (a wired or wireless remote shutter release is also helpful here).
To take photos with yourself in them. Please don’t rest your $500 DSLR on the hood of your car or some flat surface in order to take a photo of you and your soul mate together in frontrandom of some iconic place on your vacation. This is how nice cameras get broken or stolen.
To take photos that will be digitally “stitched” together to form a panoramic view. Try doing this once without a tripod and once with. You’ll use a tripod every time after you see the difference in the results.
To take time elapse exposures of stars at night.
To take photos of cityscapes at night
To take photos of small objects to sell on eBay
To take photos of rivers and water falls in which the water appears to be “flowing” in the photo (you need shutter speeds of slower than 1/15th of one second to do this)
To take photos of sleeping babies (or husbands) indoors without flash
Basically … to take photos of any stationary subject in dim ambient light.
What kind of tripod to buy
This is a question with an easy or a complicated answer, depending on your point of view. The easy answer is buy a tripod that best fits your camera and how and where you like to photograph. The complicated answer is that there are hundreds of choices and prices ranging from $25 to well over $1,000. So here are some tips:
Always try out a tripod in person with YOUR camera before buying. This doesn’t mean you
can’t order a tripod over the internet or find a great deal on eBay, but try to test the same or a very similar tripod at a local photography store or from a photographer friend who already owns one. You don’t want to buy a tripod unseen only to realize once you receive it that it doesn’t work well with your camera.
Make sure the tripod is sturdy enough to hold your camera (and lens, flash etc.) steady in all
conditions and at all angles. If you have a heavy professional or semi-professional camera and/or lens, then you’ll need more than a $50 plastic tripod from Sunpak, Velbon, or Slik. But if you have a relatively small and light consumer-level DSLR, then one of these inexpensive tripods will work well.
Make sure the tripod is lightweight enough for YOU to carry it with you. The cliché amongst
photographers is that a cheap lightweight tripod that you actually have WITH YOU is 1000
times better than the heavy and expensive tripod that is sitting at home or in the trunk of your car.
Make sure the tripod “head”, the maneuverable contraption upon which the camera sits, is strong enough to support the weight of your camera and largest lens and a flash. Also make sure it can maneuver in every conceivable direction and that it locks down tight once your desired position is achieved. Make sure the methods of locking and unlocking the head’s movement are easy for you to use. Some are much more complicated and cumbersome than others.
Don’t buy a tripod that is intended for video cameras. The manner in which the tripod head rotates and “pans” is built for video cameras and not still cameras and will not be as maneuverable as you need for a still camera.
Make sure the tripod is flexible enough for your needs. For example, if you like to take macro photos of flowers and other things low to the ground, then your tripod needs to be able to flare its legs out so your camera can be positioned low to the ground. Good professional tripods can hold the camera anywhere from 6 inches to 6 feet above the ground. Cheap, plastic, consumer tripods can only go “as low” as their legs will collapse to when folded up for travel (usually 18 to 24 inches off the ground minimum).
If you own or use more than one camera, then you’ll definitely want a tripod with quick-release plates that screw into the bottom of each camera and then latch onto the tripod. This way you can quickly change from one camera to the other on the same tripod without having to unscrew the tripod screw each time. This is also safer and better for the camera (even if you only own one) because you’re screwing a small lightweight plate into the bottom of your camera, and not the entire tripod.
If you’re using a very large lens to photograph sporting events (something that costs at least
$1500 new) then you need a monopod, not a tripod. If you’re not using such a lens, then you do not need a monopod to photograph sports. If you mount your camera, and not your lens, to the monopod, then you don’t need a monopod.
Tips for photographing with a tripod
Tripods are really quite self-explanatory. Just adjust the legs to the height you want, then rotate, tilt, and pan the head until your camera is positioned properly. But there are a few tricks to know when using a tripod:
If you need a tripod for your photograph, it’s likely because of slower shutter speeds that would cause “camera shake” and blur from hand-holding the camera. If this is the case, then often even the motion of pressing the shutter button can blur the photo slightly even if mounted on a tripod.
There are two solutions to this:
Use a remote shutter release
Use the self-timer built into your camera. Any shaking motion caused by your finger depressing the shutter button will fade after a few seconds. So set your self-timer to 10 seconds, press the shutter, and the photo will be taken – shake free – 10 seconds later.
Many DSLRs have “grid lines” inside the viewfinder that can be turned on with a menu function (check your user manual). These lines are great for helping you level the horizon of a landscape photo so that the photo does not appear “tilted” if the horizon is not straight across. Don’t rely solely on any bubble level built into your tripod, as the horizon itself may not be perfectly level.
If the ground you’re working on is uneven, then adjust the legs of your tripod to compensate.
Don’t extend all three legs all the way and then let the tripod lean on the uneven ground. There’s a good reason the three legs adjust height independently, and this is it.
Try using your tripod at different heights to get new perspectives on typical subjects. Don’t be afraid to work with your knees, butt, or even belly on the ground.
For taking tripod-mounted photographs with the camera tilted to vertical orientation, it is best to use specialized camera-rotating brackets (available at good photography stores or online) that keep the camera’s center of gravity directly over the center of the tripod. Using the basic tilt function built into many tripods allows the camera to lean to one side of the tripod and could, in some cases, cause the camera to shake enough to blur a photo or even cause the tripod and camera to fall to the ground.
BE CAREFUL when using a tripod or monopod as they often give a false sense of security that your camera is completely stable and secure. One wrong spin or turn and you can knock over your tripod, sending your expensive camera to an early death on the hard ground below. SCARY
STORY – a former photographer colleague of mine once rested his monopod mounted camera and lens on a stadium wall for a brief second while digging another memory card out of his pocket. The top-heavy combination quickly slid off the wall, crashing to the concrete below. Both his $5,000 Nikon D2X camera and $6,000 Nikkor 200mm f2.0 lens were ruined – even the Nikon factory could not repair either.
No comments:
Post a Comment