Tripod Guide for Beginning Photographers

17/09/2015

Selecting the best tripod for photography or video can be difficult for beginners. Discover tripod tips and learn which is the right tripod for you.

A good tripod is one of the most important pieces of gear in a photographer's equipment arsenal. While beginner photographers often make the mistake of leaving their tripods behind to save carrying a few pounds, what they are really sacrificing is the opportunity to take their photography to the next level. Dramatic lighting situations such as sunrise and sunset often offer the best photo opportunities, and when the light is waning and conditions are changing quickly, relying on a steady hand isn't always enough. A camera tripod provides the stability necessary to avoid camera shake, which can turn a work of art into an eyesore.

Other benefits that many beginner photographers might not consider, is how a well-placed tripod can get the shot when you physically can't be there. Tripods can hold your camera high without fatigue and a good compact tripod lets you get low without bringing you to your knees. With many modern cameras now including wireless remote operation, your camera and tripod can go places where you can't, and stay focused on scenes where it would be physically impossible to maintain a steady handheld shot. This is especially great for macro photographers who often need to get down and dirty to capture that perfect plant or tiny critter shot.

When deciding on which camera tripod to purchase, there are many options, and choosing the right tripod is just as important as selecting the right lens and camera for your photography.

Traditionally tripods were categorized by what kind of imagery you wanted to create. A camera tripod was geared towards still photography while a video tripod was traditionally suited for large broadcast or movie style camera setups. While today's tripods cover a much wider variety of uses and there are endless offerings that allow you to custom design a tripod to best fit your needs, the best starting point is still to ask yourself if you primarily need a camera tripod or a video tripod.

Next you'll need to decide what kind of gear you will be using, and in what conditions, so you can research what kind of support and load capacity you need in a tripod. Load capacity is how much gear your tripod can support in normal shooting conditions. If you think you'll be using 6 kg of gear, don't try to push a 5 kg payload tripod. If anything, go a little bigger, it will give you room for upgrades and peace of mind that your gear is safe and your images will be sharp. Knowing your gear and the shooting conditions will also help you choose which tripod head is best for you, and help you decide if you need a basic setup or should consider a higher end professional options like carbon fibre tripods.

Camera Tripods A camera/photo tripod refers to a tripod primarily used for still photography. Camera tripods come in all shapes and forms including professional tripods, entry-level tripods, mini tripods, iPhone tripods, travel tripods, and more. The primary purpose for a tripod for a camera is to help prevent camera shake. This is especially helpful when shooting in low light situations, in scenes where you want maximum depth of field (usually requiring a slow shutter speed) and when using telephoto lenses. Telephoto lenses are longer and heavier so they are more difficult to hold steady. Just as a telephoto lens magnifies a scene, it will also magnify the results of camera shake. As a general rule, shooting any shutter speed under the size of your lens is likely to result in camera shake. For example don't shoot under 1/200 with a 200mm, or slower than 1/300 with a 300mm, etc. This advice comes with the caveat that handheld shooting anything below 1/60 of a second is risking camera shake for all but the steadiest sharpshooters or those with some sort of stabilizer technology.

Here's an example scenario you might encounter to explain the need for a tripod. Let's say you are making a landscape photograph using a 300mm lens that requires the following camera settings for proper exposure-

Aperture setting of F22 (for great depth of field)

ISO 100 (for best image quality)

Shutter speed of 1/10 of a second (to allow enough light to enter camera)

The shutter speed in this scenario, 1/10 of a second, is pretty much impossible to hand hold on any lens without camera shake. Sure you could open your aperture to F4 and allow more light in to get a faster shutter speed, but at F4 your depth of field is not nearly as great, meaning there will be more areas of your frame that are not tack sharp, or in focus, and you still risk camera shake. You might ask, why not just crank up your ISO to 3200 for greater light-sensitivity, allowing for a faster shutter speed to prevent camera shake? To do so is sacrificing quality. Granted, high ISO quality is much better now than just a few years ago, but it still holds true that the lower the ISO, the better the image quality. So by using a DSLR tripod to prevent any camera movement, in this scenario, you should get the best of both worlds, your camera's lowest ISO (best quality) and smallest aperture opening (greatest depth of field) without worrying about camera shake at 1/10 of a second.

Tripods for cameras also open up new worlds of creative photography techniques not suitable for handheld camera use, such as time-lapse, motion blur, astrophotography, High Dynamic Range (HDR), night photography, fireworks displays and other low light techniques.

Here are a few basic factors you should use to help you decide which is the best camera tripod for you.

Height - Go tall if you are shooting in crowds, creating eye level headshots, or if you are shooting outdoors with obstacles like tall grass or bushes, or if you want birds-eye

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