Tripods

Sorry for a few days without action; I've been busy with assignments, but that's no excuse for briefly abandoning you. Today I'd like to run through the tripod.

The tripod is a fundamental tool in the photographer's armoury. Used wisely, it can achieve fantastic images, and used inappropriately, it becomes restrictive. Let's go through the basics to a tripod, and then have a review over the tripod that I use - the Manfrotto 055xProB.

A tripod can cost next to little and also a fortune, and for most part, it's hard to justify spending a lot of money on a tripod unless you take it very seriously. Regardless of price though, one fundamental criteria exists:

How sturdy is this tripod?

The amount of stability you need will depend on the weight of the camera that you plan to pair the tripod with, so the heavier your gear, the more sturdy your tripod should be.

Secondary things to look out for are release plates, leg mechanisms, material and weight. Let's go through each in turn.

A release plate is a detachable attachment on the head of the tripod that allow your camera to be removed from the tripod without the need to screw or unscrew it. This is very handy if you plan to work both handheld and with a tripod.

Leg mechanisms - twist systems or thumb locks are the two common mechanisms found. Twist systems are faster to operate, but generally more expensive because of the extra engineering involved in the manufacturing process.

Materials and weight - both are inherently linked, and lightweight materials such as carbon fibre will cost more, but being a rigid material, will retain the sturdiness. Benefits of having a lighter tripod will be obvious when needing to carry one for a long time. Slightly heavier materials such as magnesium and aluminium are used in quality tripods to give a good compromise on weight, rigidity and cost. The heavier weight may mean more effort needed on carrying such a tripod on hikes, but will be less an issue if it's going to stay in a studio, or will be used on occasions.

The more expensive tripods come as legs only, and a separate tripod head has to be purchased. Although this adds more to the cost, it actually offers more flexibility. There are different styles of tripod heads that will be suited better to different photography styles. I'll list 3 major types -

The three-way head: the classical head and offers an all-round performance with the ability to rotate, tilt side-to-side and up-and-down.

The ball head: essentially a ball and socket mechanism that allows for fast adjustments of the camera, and therefore a very useful head for action photography, especially panning.

The panning head: This is a head that has fine tuned rotatory action and calibration for taking panoramic pictures. The handle on these heads tend to be longer than a three-way head.

Now onto some basic uses of tripods:

1) Night time photography - a tripod will hold the camera stationary and will allow for long exposure times, such as the light trails from traffic. Now with this example there was a technical difficulty with getting an exposure time so that trails were visible, but the advertising boards in the background wouldn't be overexposured. A simple trick was used to prevent this - a piece of black card was held after a second of exposure time across the top of the lens so that the boards wouldn't be overexposed. The traffic trails were captured over 4 seconds.













2) Landscapes - a tripod will slow down working with a camera, but with landscapes this can give time to settle down, think of composition and alignment of horizons before an image is taken. With deep depth of field, a small aperture is used, such as f22. This generally means a longer exposure time, and the tripod will be able to hold the camera steady.












3) Studio work - a tripod can be used to keep the camera stationary and fixed, so in a studio photoshoot where multiple takes may be required, this offers consistency. Of special importance is macro work and focus stacking (the overlaying of images with different depth of field control to produce one image with immense depth of field). Sadly I have no examples of this to hand.


Regarding my tripods of choice, the Manfrotto 055xProB is used in my macro and night photography because of the stability it offers. I pair it up with a separate head - the 804RC, which is a low end three-way head that does a very good job. However it is cumbersome to carry for long periods of time, and so I have a more portable Manfrotto MN785B Modo Maxi that supports upto 1kg. This tripod is less stable, so it isn't as useful for night and macro photography. I use it more often in landscape photography where a light tripod is needed for hiking.

I guess the difference between the casual and the seasoned photographer when using a tripod is the knowing when to use one, which means the planning ahead on bringing one. The appropriate use of a tripod - regardless of price point - will generally yield better results by eliminating camera shake.

And there we have a basic run through tripods, and a little on when to use them.