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So you've gotten your dslr, you have a couple of good lenses, and you've got a decent looking cache of pics, but maybe you still don't own a tripod. Why would you need one, you shoot freehand, freestyle, loose and fast, at least that's what I used to tell myself. That was, of course, when I started, and didn't understand the purpose or use of a tripod, nor did I shoot at night, because there wasn't enough light, you see... Fast forward a year or 2, and I found my schedule changing, and my only available shooting times being late at night, which, as anyone who has tried to shoot handheld at dusk or later can tell you, is not easy without a flash. Looking at the basics of photography: aperture, shutter speed, and ISO, you understand that there is a give and take in terms of ratio (or at least you should, if not google "the exposure triangle"). This relationship is able to be calibrated in precise mathematical terms, but is often approximated for the sake of speed and simplicity, but when shooting in low light, if you are shooting in manual mode, or aperture priority, you will find that after a certain point, there's not enough aperture, iso, or shutter speed to compensate for a lack of light. often, if you can focus, your pictures will be blurry, or noisy, or far too dark. This is where the tripod stilts in to save the day, on it's awkward but amazing 3 legs. Tripods, these strange, seemingly old school and archaic devices, are great in these moments, among others, because they provide stability, which can eliminate shake, or movement as a negative factor from your shooting, provided the subject is not a moving one. When shooting on a tripod, you now have another flexibility, which is, you now have the ability to shoot at a lower ISO, because movement, on the part of the shooter, is effectively eliminated, and by lowering the ISO, you can get much cleaner and less noisy photos, which if you are shooting with an older camera, this can be a dramatic change in the quality of your photos, when the light gets low. This stability also allows you to shoot at much slower apertures, which can get you closer to the sweet spot of whatever lens you are using, to achieve maximum sharpness (since many lenses are not their sharpest wide open, but rather around f8-f11, but feel free to experiment and find where your lens is the sharpest, since all lenses are different) and conversely, this allows you to tightly control focus when shooting wide open, so that your depth of field is properly set up to achieve whatever your desired effect is. Anyone who has shot at f2 or lower and had trouble focusing on the right thing, only to have critical details disappear into the soft fluffy background of detail anonymity can tell you, it's frustrating, and difficult (some say impossible) to fix if you don't catch it on the spot and reshoot. another key advantage of a good tripod is the ability to do long exposures. For those unaware of this terminology, This is the technique that gives us start trails, light painting, and "soft water" photos, among others, but which also allows good clean exposures in low light, using low ISOs, moderate apertures, and long shutter speeds. Clarity, using long exposure, is best reserved for still subjects but movement, in a long exposure scenario, is rendered in a totally unique way, which by itself or in combination with still subjects, can completely change how you shoot, in a good way. But wait! There's still more that this three limbed wonder tool can do! Let's talk composition! Let's say you don't want to shoot freehand, and there are times when it is not preferable to, tripods are great, which sounds obvious, but let's explore this idea. When shooting, composition is everything, so having firm control over this composition is a real asset, and when your subject is stationary, or you're shooting landscapes, or skylines, etc, and again, in low light conditions, there's no better tool for building tight, reliable, repeatable compositions, that have all of the elements you want and none that you don't. This comes into sharp focus when you consider geometric compositions, for instance, where having tight clean lines is essential for maximum visual impact, or when you're shooting a landscape, and you're trying to get just the right balance between foreground and background elements, and still trying to keep that horizon laser straight, it's simply the right tool for the job, and with many models having a built in level, they can inform you of shooting problems before they start if a level shot is important to your project. By now, if you've been a die hard and made it all the way to the bottom, you might well want to go get a tripod if you don't already have one, and in the next post I'll help you pick a great tripod that fit's your needs and your budget, as we discuss materials, prices, and sizes. Until next time, happy shooting.
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