Why you need a tripod or two
I love tripods. No one else seems to but I love super sharp pictures. It’s odd, my fellow professional photographers will shoot images with 2-300mm expensive telephoto lenses and not get sharp results. Even with image stabilization and fast shutter speeds.
I’ll shoot the same subjects but use a tripod and the results are so sharp that I could almost shave myself with them. Almost.
The problem with tripods is that they are awkward and sometimes heavy. If you indoors with a group of people, you’re asking for trouble to have a tripod in the middle of the group. Not only is someone going to trip over it, and break your camera but they may break something as well. So if you want to use a tripod be very aware of where to place it to avoid problems. In the open, it usually isn’t a problem and having a stationary camera is a way to create discipline in camera usage. It will force you to think about what your want to photograph and why from that angle.
My favorite combination is a tripod with a pistol grip and quick release plate. The pistol grip is squeezed to release the position and release to lock the tripod head at whatever angle you want. This works for light weight camera/lens combination. If you have a big heavy lens, not only does the lens have its own mount to attach to the tripod but it will also have a tripod collar with a locking knurled screw The mount provides the best balancing point of the camera and lens combination to avoid stressing the camera by having a lens heavy combination. The tripod collar screw is released slightly to allow the lens and camera to rotate from horizontal to vertical so it’s a snap to change the image format. If you changed the pistol grips position to the side it would likely sag with a heavy lens and be difficult to work with. A collar is clearly preferable.
The quick release plates are really useful. For example, if you’re shooting a wedding you’ll place the flash near the back of the church and run back to into for the recessional. You can quickly mount your telephoto camera to it and shoot the bride and groom as the leave the church. If you left a camera mounted, it could vanish! These plates are of a standard size on higher grade tripod heads so if you have two cameras with plates attached to the cameras you can mount either in seconds.
Try an experiment. Get you favorite telephoto lens and take some test pictures at 1/30th to 1/125th of a second. Then repeat the pictures with a moderate cost tripod you can buy for $3o at Wal Mart. You’ll be suprised at how much sharper the tripod pictures are. Now, I not really recommending a $30 or $40 tripod but you can always take it with you as weight won’t be a problem. If you actually get a heavier tripod you’ll see better results as it will be more resistant to flexing.
I’ve tried monopods (a single legged “tripod”} but get iffy results. Tripods are much better, although the monopod does double duty as an off camera flash pole. You can attach your strobe to it and hold the combination high into the air for interesting results, but that’s another post.