This year is another for high flows over the falls, usually restricted by impoundment for irrigation behind a dam just above the falls. The last good falls year was 2006. The event lasts a week or two and draws a large crowd from miles and miles around. Shoshone Falls is 36 ft. higher than Niagara, but not as wide. Still, when the water is roaring over the brink, it’s a grand sight.
Tripods are found in all shapes and sizes and configured for a wide range of uses. Selecting the proper tripod for your needs can be a bit daunting if you don’t know what you’re looking for or what you need. In addition to camera bodies and lenses, the tripod is the third most important piece of equipment you will own. The tripod provides a stable platform. If the platform is not stable, the thousands of dollars you spent on the camera and lens mounted on the tripod and the time and money spent to get to wherever you are was a waste since you’ll be getting a blurry photo. You might as well have stayed home. Harsh words, but true. Spending your money right the first time will save you grief and unnecessary expense later on as you “upgrade” from inexpensive to adequate to what-you-should-have-gotten-in-the-first-place. This article will give you the information you need to make an educated choice. If after reading this you have any questions, feel free to contact me and I’ll help you as best I can.
The tripod is composed of 3 parts and all work together to create a stable platform:
1. The Legs. The legs are what hold up your camera and provide stability, extending out to form a pyramid shape, with the apex (point) at the top where the camera sits.
2. The Head. The tripod head is where your camera attaches to the tripod legs and provides the movements that allow the camera to rotate, pan, tilt, and focus (macro rails).
3. The Center Post. The center post is connected to the tripod head and typically inserts into the legs through a hole at the apex. The center post moves up and down smoothly or via gears.
Before I go further, I’ll briefly mention monopods. A monopod, just like its name suggests, is a single “leg”, usually extendable to some height, with an attachment point at the top for a head and/or camera. Monopods are handy for situations that don’t demand the secure stability of a tripod or in areas that don’t allow tripods (for safety and/or convenience issues - i.e. butterfly houses). These characteristics also apply to monopods.
If you plan to shoot primarily in a studio setting, a camera stand might be more practical than a tripod.
1. What type of photography do you shoot and need a tripod for?
The tripod you need is based on the type of photography you do, i.e. landscape, product, architecture, portrait, adventure/sports, wildlife, macro, in-studio or in the field, from your car or from your backpack. If you never leave the studio, neither does your tripod, so it can be a big and heavy camera stand, roll on casters, be 8 ft. tall and have shelves for gear, laptop, a porch swing, whatever. If you’re hiking 10 miles into the mountains or desert, you should consider a lighter, more easily transportable model. Not all tripods are created equal, nor should they be. A tripod is a tool just like your camera and is constructed differently to fit a variety of situations. You may need more than one tripod to cover the types of photography you do.
2. Sturdiness and Material
It’s the main function of the tripod to provide a mobile, stable base for your camera. If your tripod isn’t constructed well, it’s not doing you any more good than straight hand holding. Inexpensive tripods made of thin, formed aluminum can bend easily which causes them to lose functionality and stability. Tubular aluminum is more sturdy but can be heavy. Carbon fiber is sturdy and light weight but is more expensive. Wood looks nice, can be heavy, is expensive, but has excellent vibration dampening characteristics. If you have a tripod “in hand”, to test its stability extend the legs to maximum height, swing the legs out to their “default” position (without swinging the legs out further than the first setting if more than one setting is possible). With or without a tripod head mounted, rest your hand on the apex (top) of the tripod and using just the weight of your hand/arm can you feel excess vibration in the legs from your slight pressure or from people walking around? Does the tripod hold the weight and seem sturdy? Put slight downward pressure at the apex (not a lot, you’re not going to be putting a bowling ball up there - well, maybe you are. If so, add some more pressure). Look at the legs, do they bow out under pressure? Do one or more leg sections begin to collapse (does the leg extension tightening system not work well or need adjustment - can it be adjusted)?
Here I’ll mention something about the center post. Keep the center post as low as possible. In fact, you’re better off if you never raise the post at all. The apex of the tripod is the most stable point on the pyramid. Once you raise the camera above that point you begin to lose stability. The post can wobble, the center of gravity changes, vibrations are introduced, it’s just not good. If your center post is very long, it can restrict how low your camera can go. On some tripods the center post operates by a gear system, on others, it’s a smooth tube that slides up and down. Some center posts come in two sections. You can unscrew half of the post to get lower to the ground when the legs are splayed out. If the post isn’t in two parts, but is too long (and of the smooth variety), cut it down yourself with a hacksaw. It’s extra weight you don’t need, anyway.
3. Weight carrying capacity
How heavy is the equipment you’re using? A point-and-shoot Elf weighs a lot less than a Rebel Xti and quite a lot less than a EOS 1Ds Mark III, a Hasselblad H3DII, or a Linhof 6×9cm Technikardan 23S. Add a lens to your camera body, a flash, maybe even a flash bracket or macro flash set up, then add a tripod head and the legs will need to support weights ranging from a few ounces to several pounds. A lightweight set of tripod legs would be very unstable and may even buckle under the weight of the gear a wildlife photographer might use and a heavy-duty tripod would be overkill for a simple point-and-shoot camera. So, consider the weight of the equipment you’re going to use. Also, plan ahead. If you think you’ll get that bigger lens or move from simple point-and-shoot to 35mm in the near future, get the tripod that will fit those near-future needs. It’ll save you money in the long run. The tripod head is also weight-sensitive. Look at the specs carefully and note the maximum recommended weight. If your tripod head (see below) is too light your camera will not be stable.
4. Height
The maximum and minimum height a tripod extends is important if you are tall, want to be able to place the camera higher than eye level, or operate on uneven terrain (hillside), and if you want to photograph a bees knees. The maximum and minimum height of a tripod is easy to determine. If you have the tripod in hand, extend the legs to their maximum and evaluate. Collapse the legs and evaluate. If the legs can swing out, do that (see #4). Remember, if there isn’t a tripod head mounted on the tripod, you’ll have to consider the height of the head in the max and min measurements. At a minimum, the tripod should come to eye level. Why you would want to shoot always at eye level is for another discussion, but let’s just say if you’re 6 ft. tall and your tripod height is 5 ft., you’re going to get a sore back. A taller tripod also gives you flexibility when shooting on slopes; you extend 2 legs on the downslope and adjust the upslope leg to level. You’ll lose tripod height, but there are ways you can get around that if you are resourceful. If you need to raise up the center post to get some additional height, it’s ok to do that if you understand what you’re getting into (see #2 if you missed it), and the camera is still stable. I generally don’t recommend raising the center post, but I’ve done it on a handful of occasions.
5. Leg flexibility
This doesn’t refer to your ability (or not) to swing your leg up and behind your head though, if you can do that, congratulations! Some tripod legs are “restrained” by support bars attached to the center post and the legs do not operate independently. All three legs extend out at the same time and only swing out so far. The tripod legs that provide the most flexibility do not have support bars and operate independently. This allows you to adjust the length and extension of any given leg to accommodate for changes in topography and greatly increases the functionality of your tripod, especially when shooting landscapes or macro in close quarters. Some legs extend out to completely or nearly flat, others at maybe 8 - 10 degrees from center.
6. Tripod Head
The tripod head is where all the action takes place. This is where the camera is attached, so it should be very secure to both the tripod legs and camera. Inexpensive tripods have an integrated head that is not removable. Quality legs allow for the attachment of any of a number of tripod head configurations. The typical attachment nowadays between the camera and tripod is a quick release plate. The quick release plate attaches to the tripod socket on the camera body and quickly inserts and locks into a receptor on the tripod head. This allows for easy placement on and removal of the camera off the tripod. Tripod heads come in four basic flavors: pan-tilt, ball, modified ball, and gimbal. The pan-tilt head has two levers controlling pan (side-to side movement) and tilt (forward-back movement). This style is more typically used for video camera use and can be problematic to use for still photography. The ball head acts like a ball and socket joint. A ball with a screw post sits in a cup and the camera attaches to the screw post. A tension knob (or two) controls the movement and stability of the camera at nearly any position. The modified ball is a “reverse ball head”. In this case, the ball is inverted, with the post at the base (attached to the tripod) and the cup/socket attached to the camera. The cup/socket is modified and extended to accommodate a trigger release mechanism for one-handed operation. The modified ball head is taller than the typical ball head, but operation is a bit easier. The gimbal head is a roughly L or J-shaped bracket used for large focal length lenses (400mm +). The gimbal arm attaches to the lens and swings and rotates, allowing for smooth, easy movement of heavy lenses for re-composing or tracking moving subjects.
7. Weight and Compactness
The weight of the tripod affects sturdiness and your ability (or desire) to carry the thing long distances. Tubular aluminum is heavier than carbon fiber and your decision between the two will likely be based on cost. Wood can be light(ish) or heavy, but is more expensive than aluminum and not as easy to set up as either aluminum or carbon fiber. If you’re a backpacker or otherwise weight and/or space conscious you might have to sacrifice height and maybe some functionality for a smaller, lighter tripod/head combination. As mentioned previously, you could also have more than one tripod to fulfill certain functions; a lightweight ‘racer’ for backpacking or daytripping and a heavier ‘tank’ for working out of your car/truck/studio. Remember to consider (and add) the weight of the tripod head to the weight of the legs when purchasing them separately.
8. Cost
Ultimately, the final decision usually comes down to cost. The tripod is often the last piece of equipment considered after camera body and lens(es) and generally purchased well after the body and lens(es) when the photographer is tired of getting blurry photos. In my experience with students, if the tripod is purchased at the same time as the camera, it’s usually a cheap model thrown in by the salesperson for only an additional $20 or so, or scrounged from the closet or garage of a friend or relative (squirreled away there for good reason). If you’re serious about photography (or don’t want to waste your money and time and be frustrated), if you intend to shoot with long focal lengths and long exposures, shoot still life or landscapes, or shoot close-ups (macro) plan ahead and include the cost of a quality tripod and tripod head into your budget. You’ll be way ahead of the normal curve, your results will be what you want them to be, you’ll be happier and more productive, and you’ll save money in the long run (a good tripod will outlast your camera body - I’ve gone through 3 cameras so far but only one tripod). Plan to spend $300 - $700 for a set of decent intermediate tripod legs and head, though you could spend much more than that if you wanted to.