Beginning In Photography: Tripod: Friend Or Foe?

They're heavy, expensive, conspicuous, take time toshooting a low light landscape and pointing your
set up and take apart again. In short, tripods are acamera out into the vast beyond, there is little or
nuisance. And in this age of digital cameras, we cannothing for the flash to bounce off and the light it
always increase the ISO sensitivity to accommodate aproduces will be lost. So sometimes there is no other
low light situation. So why bother with one at all? Let'schoice but to sit your camera on a tripod, reduce the
look at some of the advantages of using a tripod.ISO and slow down your shutter speed to take in all
Noise reductionthe available light.
Fist of all, what is noise? Increasing the ISO level in aCreativity
digital camera amplifies the signal through the digitalLike just about any other camera accessory, tripods
sensor that records the image. This is much the samecan be creative as well as utilitarian. Think cityscapes
as turning the volume on your home stereo up to 10.at night with traffic trails running through the scene.
You will hear a hissing in the background. This isThink clouds moving through a twilight sky. To capture
amplification noise. It looks like grain in a low quality filmthis movement and keep the static objects in an image
would and decreases the quality of the image in thesharp requires a long shutter speed. So the camera
same way.needs to be kept deadly still for 20 or 30 seconds or
The technology used to make digital cameraseven longer. It is just not physically possible for a
advances almost daily. One day, hopefully soon, digitalhuman to do this, so the only thing for it is to drag out
cameras will be created that can record the samethe tripod, perch your camera on top and use either a
quality image no matter what ISO setting is used. Butself timer or cable release to take the shot.
until then, we just have to except the fact that if youDepending on what you want to do with your images,
want a better quality image, you need to use a loweryou will either regard your tripod as your best friend or
ISO. If you want to shoot in low light or at night, therebiggest annoyance. If your photos are destined for
are a couple of options. Firstly, you could use a flash.web use or maybe small prints for a photo album, you
Using flash can produce some very natural or verymight not be as concerned with the technical quality of
creative results, depending on how you use it. Butthe end result, but if you want to enlarge prints to hang
there are a couple of drawbacks. Firstly, you have toon a wall, or are looking to sell your images, you will
buy a flash unit. In most cases the little pop up flash onsoon discover that a tripod is a valuable tool capable
your camera is simply not powerful enough to doof being the difference between getting that million
anything more than fill in some dark areas in an alreadydollar shot or missing a golden opportunity. I carry mine
well lit scene. Flash won't work for all subjects either. Itjust about everywhere.
is fine if you want to take portraits, but if you are