A good tripod is a fundamental part of any serious photographer's kit. There is probably no other piece of equipment capable of improving your success so much or so easily. A quality tripod will provide you with the sharpest possible pictures from the cash you have investment in cameras and lenses. It also slows down some aspects of the capture process forcing you to take the time to consider your composition more thoughtfully. This article is not about those little table-top tripods that you will sometimes see offered in “accessory kits” for your new camera, along with a cleaning cloth and a camera bag. They do have a place, be what you need is stable, not cute.
Hasn’t Image Stabilisation made the tripod redundant? A tripod places your camera where you want it and keeps it there, sometimes in places you otherwise couldn't hold it, let alone hold it steady.
Good tripods let you place the camera just inches off the ground or well above eye level. Shooting portraits, still life, landscapes or any studio subject, the tripod frees you from the camera. Paired with a cable release or a remote control, it gives you the freedom to move around the room, to chat with your subject and put them at ease, allows you to concentrate on the lighting and your subjects, making adjustments to either, knowing that the camera is both secure and in the right place. It can reduce self-consciousness, letting you trigger the shutter when the right pose emerges without the subject even being aware that the shot is in the bag.
Long exposures needed to capture traffic light trails at night, turn waterfalls into milky flows or show the paths of stars at night are also beyond the capacity of image stabilisation; they demand a tripod.
Telephoto lenses magnify camera movement even more than they magnify your subject. That includes vibration caused by the camera shutter and mirror, wind, and the photographer. They also tend to have lower maximum apertures and making for slower shutter speeds to get correct exposures. This exacerbates the problem. Zoom lenses are even slower at the long end than equivalent prime (single focal length) lenses.
An old rule of thumb to reduce shake - ensure that the shutter speed is at least equal to the reciprocal of the focal length. All that means is for a 500 mm. lens set your shutter to 1/500 second or faster, for a 100mm lens set 1/100; for a 30mm your OK at 1/30 and so on.
Digital cameras complicate the rule, because they increase the effective focal length of lenses. Most by 1.5x, others by 1.6x, still others double the apparent focal length of any lens. Additionally, they seldom tell you what focal length the zoom lens is set to.
If you know the focal length and the conversion factor for your camera, you can apply the same rule, but you have to convert the focal length first. So for a typical camera set-up, a 300mm lens has to treated as 450mm (300x1.5) and you need to keep you shutter speed above 1/450 to avoid shake spoiling your picture.
At any shutter speed slower than the reciprocal of the effective focal length, a tripod is in order. If your lens or camera has some form of vibration of anti-shake mechanism you may gain a few stops, but you are still going to hit that limit where only a solid support can save the picture!
Digital photography increases the value of a tripod, when using anything but mid to high end cameras because they have considerable shutter lag - that loooong pause between pressing the button and the shutter actually firing. A tripod can’t reduce shutter lag, but it stops you moving the camera too soon after pressing the shutter release, a cause of many spoilt shots.
The old axiom "you get what you pay for" is not entirely true when it comes to tripods. You can definitely find good products at a reasonable price on E-Bay and the like provided you know what you are looking for. Tripods from specialist companies like Manfrotto Bogen, Giott, Gitzoo and Slik will perform well and long, but my current favourite is a 'no name' carbon fibre I bought on-line for about 1/2 the price of an equivalent Manfrotto.
Companies like Velbon also make good equipment and are priced below many of the ‘first line” manufacturers, who in any case have some very good budget lines.
Choosing a 'Pod:
The first thing to consider when choosing a tripod is the size and weight of the heaviest camera and lens combo your tripod will support. All tripods have a load capacity, so read the specifications; check this against the weight of your camera + lens and add a bit of an allowance if the lens is very long. If possible, try the camera on the tripod: most shops will be happy to let you do this (and you could still buy on line).
The weight of a tripod is not related to how much weight it can carry (this has more to do with the construction and materials), but some photographers – especially those work in a studio - prefer heavier tripods because their weight makes them inherently more stable. However, if you are going to lug the tripod around with you, lightness and transportability may be critical. Space and aeronautical technology have done a lot for the photographer, and tripods made with space age materials and construction techniques have given us very sturdy tripods that are light and easily transported.
Typical construction materials include carbon fibre, magnesium and aluminium(aluminum for our American cousins). The lightest tripods are carbon fibre, often with magnesium fittings. They are not only light, they are more rigid and stronger than aluminium along the leg's vertical axis. Having a tripod that is 30% without sacrificing strength is a huge plus.
Carbon is expensive, though, and most tripods are made from aluminium. They offer good support at a lower price and are good value. At the other end of the range are tripods made of large diameter aluminium tubing and heavy-duty fittings and timber tripods, designed for the studio and medium to large format equipment like 4X5 and 8X10 view cameras that can weigh in excess of 12 kilograms (about 20 lbs).
All major manufacturers make tripods in each class, balancing weight, rigidity and other features at various price points.
The head you get for your tripod is just as important as the legs. They come as standard with cheap tripods, but in the better brands, the head is generally a separate purchase, though kits are available; Tripod makers expect that you would prefer to match the head with your personal shooting needs, and pick the type and model that suits you best, and perhaps use different heads for different needs. Heads from one manufacturer will fit the bodies of other brands.
The key points to remember when selecting a head are how smoothly it moves, how much weight it can safely support and how well it locks.
There are a few different types to chose from, each with their strengths and weaknesses. The basic heads used in still photography are the 3-way head and the ball head. As with the tripod, buy the head that will cope with the heaviest gear you plan to mount on it.
Pan and tilt heads are the most common type supplied with inexpensive tripods, and the least suitable. They were designed for movie cameras and the scaled-down, undamped versions commonly supplied on cheap tripods are not up to the job.
Nature photographers and users of spotting scopes or long telephoto lenses do sometimes opt for heads designed for video cameras, but these are the real deal, giving extra counterbalance, adjustable friction controls and fluid damping, which allow smooth panning.
Each type of head is adjusted differently when you have to reposition the camera.
Some are spring-loaded, so all you need do is grip it to move the camera and release it to lock the new position.
Ball heads have just one knob to release and secure the camera, while three-way heads manage adjustment in each plain independently, which means that you don’t throw the horizontal level off, for instance, while you are getting the pan or vertical positions right.
This makes ball heads quicker to adjust and therefore better for fast moving applications like for bird photography. One lever is used to loosen the head, and movement in any direction is then possible, but also makes them a bit less precise for, say landscapes and panoramas.
There is actually a special head for people who want to take a lot of multi-image panoramas of the kind that need to be stitched together in the computer to make the final image.
Think about how quick the system will be to set up and take down. The centre post is the weakest link in your tripod: the higher it is raised, the more unsteady your tripod becomes. With the legs fully extended, you should not need to extend the centre post in most situations. If you find yourself extending the centre post frequently, your tripod is too short.
Quick release plates are useful. They can be left on the camera permanently and allow quick assembly and disassembly from the tripod. They are normally supplied with the tripod but bear in mind that the plate from one system will rarely fit another, something to remember if you buy a second tripod or a monopod.
Your tripod is going to have a tougher life than your camera: it is going to stand in mud and water, cope with dust and grit, be tripped over and dumped in the back of the ute under a load of other equipment. It has to be tough: the legs should not deform in the heat or under weight, the locks should perform smoothly even if clogged with dirt, and the feet should not slip no matter what surface they encounter. This last situation is catered for by feet designed not to to damage fragile surfaces but which can reverse or draw back to reveal metal spikes when needed.
The final tripod accessory to look for is a hook on the bottom of the centre post. This allows a bag to be hung there. When filled with soil, rocks, etc. it adds extra stability. I have also seen the hook used to carry spare film, and I have seen it used to attach the ‘pod to the deck of a boat with a rubber strap! A useful tool indeed; speaking of which, better tripods are supplied with hex keys and other tools to let you keep them in prime condition.
Choose your tripod well, clean it and give it a wipedown after each session, and it will give you years of great service. It will also make you look very professional out amongst all those photographers who have yet to discover how valuable an accessory it is.
