How important is a tripod for you?

[RichardC]

I have six plus a Manfrotto pro monopod.

I've got some Manfrotto legs in the garage that extend to about eight feet and are so heavy that they've remained in the garage for eight years. You never know when you might need them though.

I've got a Manfrotto 055 and 190, the latter having a rotating column. I have a large Manfrotto ball head which I swap between the two.

A Velbon Mini which has 3 section aluminium legs and folds down to fit in to a big lens pouch tends to live in my car, just in case.

Lastly, I've got two Minolta table tripods (their version of the Leitz TOOUG and marketed when Minolta were working with Leica for the CL/Minolta CLE). I keep one in my bag all the time - they're great for flash stands and close work.

I like using tripods and use them where practical - it gives me time to think. With IBIS though, they have ceased to become an essential for most of my photography.

For macro photography with bellows, I use the 055 and clamp it to the stand supporting my subject with Magic Arms so there is no movement relative to the camera.

I have noticed that if I'm out and about with a tripod, non-photographers seem to make more effort to avoid drifting into your shot, while any enthusiasts are more likely to come and chat to you.

 

[wee-pics]

I also have two very good Manfrotto tripods, the handy and very small one and the normal-sized. Yet I must admit they rest in peace on the bookshelf. I still find it too cumbersome to carry them with me just for the case I might need them. Usually I find a place where I can stabilize my camera for shake-free shots.
What I decided to give a try is the solution Mark Berkery (Macro Illustrated) uses for his wonderful macro shots: just a normal stick, using my feet to turn the monopod into a tripod. This might be the solution in the direction of 'always at hand' and give the pinch of sharpness needed in spite of IBIS.

Just to quote him from his website:
"I don’t use a tripod or monopod since all my subjects are alive and usually on the move or about to be. They don’t wait for ‘pods to be set up. Usually there is a very short window when the shot can be had and it helps to have some quick method of very mobile stabilisation, especially if I can’t hold the objects perch. My primary solution is a stick.
A smooth polished wooden stick about five foot long and no thicker than my thumb. I use it gripped between left fingers and cam (or somehow or other) so if I release the pressure it slides easily up or down at will for vertical stability at any practical height. It can also be planted in the ground at different angles to maximise horizontal stability at any height. In fact, between my knee on the ground and my other foot planted away for stability, the stick acts as the third leg of a very articulate tripod – me.
Don’t think about how you can make a stick work for you, try it out and its working for you will unfold as the necessary mechanics to maximise stability. Just feel free to use it any way that works for you, for stability. Your keeper rate will probably double soon after."

 

[Glevum Owl]

I didn't realise how little I used a tripod until recently when a friend asked if I had one she might borrow. I said yes, then had to think hard to recall where I'd stored it.

 

[Phil.H]

When doing landscapes I almost always use my tripod for several reasons. I am usually taking photos before the sun has risen,so a tripod is needed. Another reason is I don't bracket, I prefer to use filters to balance the exposure when I can. Once the light allows I will do more handheld.

 

[The Electric Squirrel]

I shoot both hand-held and with a tripod. I own two tripods, or three to be exact, but the third one is a retired old Manfrotto NAT055. Chunky beast that is a chore to haul anywhere. The two ones I really use are a Genesis Base C5 and a Sirui Traveler 7C, with ballheads amounting to 2kg and 1,5kg respectively. Either one I can easily carry in the hand for hours in the nature, and the larger Genesis doubles as a walking stick when I have to keep balance traversing boulders or shallow rivers.

Working with tripods is always extra work, of course, but for me having the camera on a static base makes it easier to think my composition through and fine tune it. Especially if the light is coming and going, I can set up my comp and just stand around waiting for it to come back and press the button on my remote when it does. But there are times tripods are just a hindrance.

But I don't believe there is a right way to do things here. Just do what works for you, if you like working with a tripod, then tripod it is. And the other way around. One thing though, getting a tripod that is light enough to carry and quick enough to deploy is essential to make one feel like bringing the bloody thing along in the first place. There's a reason that old 'frotto is gathering dust in the garage right now...

 

[Irene McC]

A smooth polished wooden stick about five foot long and no thicker than my thumb. I use it gripped between left fingers and cam (or somehow or other) so if I release the pressure it slides easily up or down at will for vertical stability at any practical height. It can also be planted in the ground at different angles to maximise horizontal stability at any height. In fact, between my knee on the ground and my other foot planted away for stability, the stick acts as the third leg of a very articulate tripod – me.

I'm finding it impossible to visualise what the author means. Do you have a way of explaining it more clearly please?

 

[Richard]

I find that I have three tripods; a 1980s vintage Slik pan and tilt model which I bought as a student, a cheap and nasty short thing I 'acquired' from a company I once worked for (well, it was just gathering dust on a shelf) and an ultra-compact Sony folding tripod with a ball and socket head.

Of those, the little Sony tripod gets the most use, simply because it's only about 6" long in its little cloth bag, and you hardly know you've got it with you when travelling. It's a lovely neat design and it's a significant improvement on propping the camera up with a rock when taking selfies.

-R

 

[Hendrik]

I'm finding it impossible to visualise what the author means. Do you have a way of explaining it more clearly please?

At close range, even with good image stabilization, the photographer's problem becomes one of maintaining focus since forward/backward is THE axis that image stabilization does not affect. If the subject is at ground level and you can plant your body and elbows then you have a pretty effective organic tripod, however makeshift. But, once on your knees or feet, the act of keeping balance keeps moving the focus plane unpredictably. Regulating distance to the subject through the lower back is a crap shoot when the plane of focus is no more than a millimeter or two deep. The stick hack allows one to make a direct connection to the solid world (ground, tree trunk, etc.), thus helping to isolate the camera from the gross motor movements involved in maintaining balance. The trick is to plant the stick (held in the left hand) in a secure position somewhere in front of the camera (position to be determined by the circumstances) but out of the field of view, and then grasp the stick with at least the ring and pinky fingers while making firm contact with the camera with the thumb and index finger. This will help diminish the movement of the plane of focus relative to the subject. Other than wind, which is capable of confounding all efforts, there are two major failure modes left. The first is that the camera position will describe an arc centered on the planted end of the stick. The second is possible competition between your face and the stick for space in back of the camera if you insist on using the viewfinder. Advantage: tripod.

Another means to the same end is to mount the camera with a ballhead to an extending monopod.

 

[Richard]

That makes sense to me, anyway.

IS will take care of trembling type movement, but it won't stop you weaving about and losing focus.

Holding a stick which is planted in the ground will help reduce the weaving about.

Use a tripod and you will neither weave nor tremble (!)

-R

 

[Irene McC]

Thank you @Hendrik I appreciate this, but it still seems awfully fandangled

 

[Hendrik]

Thank you @Hendrik I appreciate this, but it still seems awfully fandangled

Fandangled it may be, but it works and probably represents the minimum extra gear to achieve the desired end. I prefer the monopod/ballhead approach but the stick is close to the ultimate way of traveling light while still carrying a focus aid. For really up-close shots of trees, for example, I spread my left hand so that the tips of the thumb and pinky are as far away from each other as I can manage (I play keyboard and for me that's a stretch of a twelfth), plant the pinky on the tree and steady the lens hood on the tip of my thumb. Stuff like that - it makes a difference.

 

[wee-pics]

I'm finding it impossible to visualise what the author means. Do you have a way of explaining it more clearly please?

If I've understood him right you stabilize the camera with the stick and your hands leaning the stick against your body. So your body with your two feet are the other two legs of an imaginary tripod. Even if you use the stick like a monopod you get the camera less shaky than freehand.

 

[Kevin]

Isn't using a stick just another form of a using a monopod?

 

[Richard]

A monopod will normally have collapsible sections and some sort of threaded mount on the end, whereas a stick ...

-R

 

[Kevin]

A monopod will normally have collapsible sections and some sort of threaded mount on the end, whereas a stick ...

-R

Depends on the manufacturer as to whether it's collapsible or not.

At it's simplest....

Definition of MONOPOD

a one-legged support (as for a camera)… See the full definition

www.merriam-webster.com

 

[archaeopteryx]

Regulating distance to the subject through the lower back is a crap shoot when the plane of focus is no more than a millimeter or two deep.

Yup. Just a comment that 1–2 mm DoF is close up magnifications or stopped down 1x. At the upper end of the magnifications I currently use in autofocus bracketing it's a 6 μm DoF and the total bracket thickness is 0.5 mm. This requires a tripod if you want anything useful.

To link together some of the comments upthread, stabilization requirements for focus bracketing are continuum. The higher the magnification, the smaller the amount of camera and subject movement that's allowable for a given level of image quality in the output stack.

Sure you can carry a tripod with you to most places and their very portable ones as well (I do own a compact travel K&F Concept one). But it takes time to unfold one, set up the right angle and leveled horizon, mount and dismount the camera, etc.

Which, in general outdoor and nature photography, I would suggest is the main value of a tripod. Slowing down tends to encourage more careful thinking about composition and gives time to be more critical of details. If you're going to do all that set up it probably means you've identified something you think is worth it. This often isn't important to the technical aspects of image quality for all the reasons already mentioned but quite a few photographers, including me, find this sort of compositional cross-training to be helpful.

Tripod discussion rarely mentions the converse of this, which is even with static nature or landscape compositions there are experimental or seemingly marginal things you're unlikely try if they're much effort but which turn out to be very satisfying images. The end result for me has been quite a few of the most popular images I've come up with are from sensors around 1/2.5" simply because it wasn't the sort of thing where I'd have an ILC along, much less a tripod.

 

[rayvonn]

Only for night time long exposure shots. It’s different these days. Needing a tripod for wide open shots isn’t necessary with ibis and/ or peoples’ better general knowledge and capability as to how to apply technique, iso, shutter speed, composition and balance. And if the purpose is to get absolutely everything in sharp focus for a landscape shot, then no, not for me - the human eye doesn’t process a landscape scene that way, some parts of the landscape will be in focus, some will not. You can recreate that with a camera handheld. Again with waterfalls, I have done shots with a tripod to freeze the water but for me it was too much of a manufactured view of the scene compared to what my eye saw. Others will feel different about this which is great; wouldn’t it be boring if we were all the same.

 

[kyteflyer]

Three tripods, use none. Not even at night. Although I haven't done anything at night for a year or more. Might need one now, with advancing age.

 

[Bart J D]

I think I still have a slik tripod stashed somewhere from when I just started and still thought I needed "all that cool stuff".
I have used it a few times for real - make that a couple.
My daughter used it for her courses in photography though so, no guilty conscience since
Simply not compatible with how I take pictures.

I will probably need to dust it off for product shots of the items I'll be selling though

 

[davidzvi]

I will add I have been tempted by the Benro GD3WH 3-Way Geared Head. I had a Manfrotto 410 3-Way, Geared Head for a while and it was great for detail shots before I started doing them with my IBIS cameras instead of my DSLRs. But I don't do enough repetitive or stages shots to justify the cost even for the price you can find them on flee bay.