Tripod use for landscape

311

I read a couple of books lately and the photographer in one almost always used a tripod for his shots ,also I've read that using a tripod automatically increases the quality of an image.

Is it true ? ,I've started using a tripod for landscape so I can have F16 at ISO100. Does anyone use a tripod for their shots??

rymus

I'll use it if, for example, Im going to use an ND filter or at a shutter speed that I wouldnt feel capable of hand holding. As for using a tripod making a shot automatically better, well... I remain to be persuaded.

311

thanks rymus ,the reference to the better shot automatically was written in a thread here as far as I can remember.
Some guy said you get more precise image burn the steadier the camera is.

rymus

well yeah, the steadier the better... but if you're shooting with a 30mm lens with a shutter speed of say 1/100, it's not really going to be an issue..

311

Cool ,that just gave me an idea ,I might give shutter priority a go instead of aperture priority for night shots.

leinsterman

_Brian_ wrote:

I read a couple of books lately and the photographer in one almost always used a tripod for his shots ,also I've read that using a tripod automatically increases the quality of an image.

Is it true ? ,I've started using a tripod for landscape so I can have F16 at ISO100. Does anyone use a tripod for their shots??

My big thing is landscapes ... and for this a tripod is a must ...

For this reason I have three tripods, a monopod and a bean bag ... sounds like overkill ? ... well in a way it is ... in another it is not ... what do I mean by this ... well -

The first thing I got at a hiking store in Phoenix Arizona (www.rei.com) was a walking stick which converts to monopod ... great idea and works well for me ... this has been with me at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and the top of some of the highest places in the Andes.... its dual purpose makes it particularly useful ... but not ideal for low light coz you can still get shake.... also can't really take big lenses.

Being a gadget fiend ... I then bought a little clamp which fits neatly into a tiny space ... main reason portability ... landscapes involve tough hikes sometimes ... problem is it can't hold my big lenses and my 20d ... they are too heavy, works OK with my lazy walk around lens ... a Sigma 18-125mm ... but you have to be careful coz even with this it can topple over ... conclusion ... waste of money ...

Next I splashed out for a Manfrotto 190PROB with three axis head ... not cheap but this can hold anything ... also has a hook for increased stability, you can hang your camera bag from it ... stability is key ... esepcially in high winds ... it is not graphite so it gets a wee bit heavy after a few miles ... therein lies a problem ... try climbing a mountain at 4000M with this baby on your back ... not recommended ... in this situation water and food is the only weight you want to carry, the rest, especially camera equipment, needs to be carefully thought out. Can also work indoors at a home studio. A great tripod which gets a fair amount of use.

Next I went for a bean bag (just an ordinary one not the so called overpriced photography ones) ... highly portable and works as long a it fits the whole body and a good bit of the lens ... this has replaced my clamp but has one disadvantage ... you need to find a surface to rest it upon ... so not too good in the wet or the wild.

Finally ... and only last weekend, I got a Velbon Ultra Max iF ... yes another tripod ... extremely light and compact (less than 1Kg, folds to around 35cm , extends in 4 parts plus the centre column to nearly 1.8M high) ... not great stability at full extension in high wind but you don't have to extend fully ... at min extension with wide spread of legs (the legs have 3 spread positions), it is remarkably stable for its weight and size ... could benefit with the addition of a hook to increase its weight but I suspect this can be DIY'd with gaffer tape ... won't hold huge L lenses, but can take anything I have, including a Canon 100-400mm IS L at 1.4Kg for the lens alone (you also have to add the weight of the camera body) ... which is big enough ... I have hiked along the Jurassic coast of Dorset last weekend with this on my back and barely noticed it ... beautifly compact with a carry case so I can hang it on the outside of my smallest Lowepro camera case ... so this is great ... It also fits neatly into my luggage ...very important in these days of increased luggage restrictions and pay per Kg enforcement of the likes of Ryanair and BA. It was an impulse purchase ... but so far so good and I love this tripod ... got it in Jessops in Yeovil for just UK£65.

So in conclusion ... tripods, beanbags and indeed monopods are essential. You need to think of your usage circumstances ... heavy & bulky = bad for long haul hikes and flights alike ... but heavy = good for short hikes, studio work, city work and drives.

311

Great post leinsterman ,thanks for that.

rymus

so is it as cut & dried as posting photos taken with & without a tripod using the same exposure settings and comparing quality? Or am I over simplifing it?

311

Rymus ,as far as I get what your saying once the lens is a short portrait lens there should be enough light for standard shots,without a tripod.
is that what you mean?

Zillah

A tripod will always give you extra stability, which means you can have slower aperture, which means you can have lower ISO, which means a better quality image (digitally speaking ).

Aside from that I don't see how tripod=better image, as above 100 or so, and certainly 200, stability really isn't an issue; you'd have to be shaking the camera really hard for it to matter.

rymus

Well.. once the shutter speed is sufficient to handhold whatever lens you're using, I cant see that a tripod would make a massive difference. Now obviously if you've got to ramp up the ISO to get sufficient shutter speed, then a tripod is the only way to go.

So..... tripod when the light isn't so great?

leinsterman

Well you can always increase the ISO to allow a faster shutter speed for a given aperture, but consider this -

What happens when you want to blur the ebbing tide or the waterfall to create a lovely creamy effect in the evening sun? ... no amount of ISO will be enough because by its very nature you want a slow shutter speed ... you do not always want to freeze all of the action ...

... or what happens at pre dawn or sundown when the sky lights up with a beautiful orange, pink and red glow but you still want everything in nice focus ... fair enough you can get a result with the right amount of light and a wide aperature... but not with the foreground in perfect focus ... a narrow aperature is desirable here ... and ISO noise is not ... hand holding cannot achieve this.... The best light in the day is often evening and morning but there is not alway enough of it.

... or what if you want to stitch together a panorama ? ... true this can be achieved with hand holding but no way near as accurately as when using a tripod with a panoramic head.

rymus

having done all three I can see where you're coming from and would never consider attempting any without the use of a stable tripod. After all that, hows about some tripod'd landscape shots?

Valentia

You cant bate the old tripod. I find I lose a lot of stuff through shake when using a long telephoto lens, old age you see.

I have a lovely Manfrotto that weighs a metric ton so I'd love some advice on getting a light, strong and reasonably priced tripod. I rarely travel without my monopod but still after a night on the raz it's difficult to keep even that steady.

311

Lads ,it's enlightening to see people talk about this ,everytime I think about something it takes me a couple of hours to get there to find out if I was right.

Fenster

Tripods FTW. Eh.

I take mine eveywhere I go, even if I don't do all that much right now

alb

Well the rule of thumb is your shutter speed should be 1 over your focal length right? i.e if you're at 100mm at least 1/100 seconds. So i guess if you're abiding by that and have a fairly steady hand you'll get a reasonably sharp photo. Of course if you're talking about landscapes for professional use that might perhaps be enlarged a lot you may want to use a tripod if you feel it'll get you that extra bit of sharpness.

Bear in mind a tripod doesn't necessarily mean a sharper image though - a bad tripod in challenging conditions may end up more shakey than if you'd handheld it.

From a creativity point of view many find that the hassle of setting up the tripod and the extra time it takes to compose the shot is a good thing, as it makes the shots more considered and gives you more time to really analyse the composition before shooting. Personally, I don't agree with this, I don't like the hassle of setting up the tripod and I certainly don't like carting one around on my back or in my hand. I reckon I probably miss more shots because I dont think they're worth all the hassle than I improve shots by using it. When I'm going hand-held I can just shoot off the cuff as I go, and decide what works and what doesn't later. I like the idea of the beanbag however, small and light so you've nothing to lose by carrying it and I've certainly encountered some situation where it would have helped.

I guess a lot of it is personal preference, but for me I'll rarely use a tripod unless forced to by the necessity of a shutter speed too slow for my focal length.

311

I knew nothing about the zoom to shutter ratio.
I got worried when I went through the book I was reading ,the guy was using a tripod in the middle of the day with the sun shining to take a photograph.

Thanks.

digitalbeginner

Apart from reasons of minimising camera shake, the main reason you would use a tripod in landscape photography is to make sure you get the shot you want. A tripod will let you see, for example, how many trees are on the right, then think about it for a few seconds/minutes then adjust if necessary. It also means that if you're bracketing your exposure then each shot is framed exactly the same.

Worked for Ansel Adams.

311

digitalbeginner wrote:

Apart from reasons of minimising camera shake, the main reason you would use a tripod in landscape photography is to make sure you get the shot you want. A tripod will let you see, for example, how many trees are on the right, then think about it for a few seconds/minutes then adjust if necessary. It also means that if you're bracketing your exposure then each shot is framed exactly the same.

Worked for Ansel Adams.

Yep ,that does be in the back of my mind ,thought it was just me though .
For some reason when I use the tripod ,it seems to do some of my thinking for me ,i.e. I just set up where I feel comfortable and don't just walk around.

cheers

bp_me

I know you have all seen this, but tripod schmipod (you get the idea)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bp_me/213878837/

Taken around 830 in the evening. 1/100 @ f5.6 and ISO100 if I remember correctly.

As said earlier, the main need for a tripod is if you need to use a lower shutter speed and you cant handhold it. Typically below about 1/60th or 1/30th depending on the person and how steady their hand is.

And in comparison, one with taken with a tripod.

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/29969058/

I cant remember the settings off the top of my head for this one.

elven

I struggle to see that a shot where you're at the lowest ISO, with an aperture stopped down as much as you require for DoF, and you still have a decent shutter speed enough to hand hold (relative to the length of lens you're using of couse), where the difference would be in using a tripod, apart from the non-technical things like allowing you to compose carefully, or stopping you wandering about. But these things are definitely worth considering. Of course, if it's dawn/dusk/low light and you want a longer exposure, there's just no question, you always want to have a tripod.

See the whole 1/focal length thing (very handy, saved my skin a few times)... do you have to take the crop factor into account when using non EF lenses on a digital body?

Leinsterman, thanks for the handy rundown of the tripods. That Velbon one sounds like just the ticket - I have a cheap velbon one - the ickle baby one, I use for indoor macros, and I wondered about it's big brothers/uncles but wasn't sure if they'd be any good.

digitalage

I too shoot alot of landscapes and have used the manfrotto tripod 190b for a few years but recently I have acquired the carbon fiber gitzo g1327, this tripod is solid as a rock, its alot sturdier and the stability is alot better than the manfrotto. I have used this tripod with a bag attached in windy conditions and the shots still come out sharp, would'nt have been possible with a cheaper tripod. I use a manfrotto ballhead 488 with the gitzo legs, I find this a good combination, these tripod legs cost me over 650 euro and they are worth every penny. Heres an article worth a read,

http://bythom.com/support.htm

JMcL

alb wrote:

Well the rule of thumb is your shutter speed should be 1 over your focal length right? i.e if you're at 100mm at least 1/100 seconds. So i guess if you're abiding by that and have a fairly steady hand you'll get a reasonably sharp photo. Of course if you're talking about landscapes for professional use that might perhaps be enlarged a lot you may want to use a tripod if you feel it'll get you that extra bit of sharpness.

Our old friend the crop factor comes into play here again, so you should apply this to the effective focal length as the image, so on your 100mm lens on a 1.6x camera, you'd be looking at a speed of 1/160. But as you say this is a rule of thumb, and many people may be able to hold steady enough to take shots much slower. Also on a 10mm ultra wide, you're going to be able to go pretty slow.

alb wrote:

From a creativity point of view many find that the hassle of setting up the tripod and the extra time it takes to compose the shot is a good thing, as it makes the shots more considered and gives you more time to really analyse the composition before shooting.

I do find this to be an advantage I must say, much less tiring too if you're standing around waiting for the sun to set, plus it give you free hands to fend off midges

An important reason why tripods are invaluable for landscapes is that frequently you'll be using small apertures, and that combined with low light levels say at sunrise/sunset, and trying to keep the ISO as low as possible, can make for slow shutter speeds. Also, if you want to do stuff like make water look smooth you're looking at trying to get exposures of at the very least half a second, which is just impossible handheld