Project 33 – Using a Tripod
Wednesday 19th September 2012
In landscape photography the use of a tripod gives the opportunity for amore considered way of working and to take time with the composition of a photograph. It allows the photographer to use a higher aperture eg.f.29 therefore giving a greater depth of field, meaning both the foreground and distance of the scene to be sharp.
When shooting at a slower shutter speed, probably below 1/60th sec, a tripod is a must otherwise the inevitable camera shake will cause ‘fuzziness’ in the image. The photograph below, shot at 1/20th sec without a tripod, clearly demonstrates this. The motion of the sea is captured, but the rocks on which the waves are breaking are a little soft.
I have to confess that up to very recently I have been very lax about using a tripod, – too lazy to carry it, not spontaneous enough when you see a shot and want to capture the transient light effect, too ‘fiddley’ adjusting legs etc. before taking the photograph, and not so manoeuvrable as a hand held camera when you want to adjust the viewpoint. In order to accommodate shutter speed and aperture I have tended to ‘up the ISO’.
Using a tripod also allows for two or more identical frames to be taken, such as when bracketing or taking several images to merge as a HDR picture. It is also useful for taking panoramic images as the horizon remains level and so there is no distortion when the individual photographs are stitched.
Here are a number of photographs taken with and without the use of a tripod, they are not pairs but as individual images they clearly demonstrate the advantage of using a tripod.
Which of the 5 photographs below do you think were taken using a tripod ?
Moulin Huet, Guernsey ISO100 17mm o.5sec f.22
La Valette Bathing Pools, Guernsey ISO100 42mm 1/25sec f.16
La Valette Pools B & W ISO125 15mm 0.4 f.22
Dixcart Bay, Sark ISO100 27mm 1/13sec f.25
Almond – Port Soif, Guernsey ISO100 18mm 1/20sec f.25
So, did you guess correctly ? No tripod was used for Image 2 – La Valette Bathing Pools and Image 4 – Dixcart Bay, Sark.
Finally here are two photographs of the same scene, the first one is taken using a tripod, the second is hand held. Both use the same settings ISO100 26mm 1/20th sec f.22
francessmithlandscapes 