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How Many Tripods are Too Many?

25 Saturday Nov 2017

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How many tripods are too many?  That was a real dilemma for me once. I bought so many that I had more tripods than all my other photography equipment put together!

My very first one was very inexpensive ($19.99 on sale!)). It had its issues but was what I could afford at the time and it worked for me. It was lightweight and fairly easy to use. I progressed up to a better one when the first one could not handle longer lenses (it tended to tip over from the lens weight).

My next tripod was made for the heavier equipment (camera and telephoto/zoom lenses). And it was built sturdier which made the tripod heavier to carry around. The shoe plate (where the camera attaches to the tripod) was set in one position which meant it only took landscape shots.  A great tripod for the price. That one cost me around sixty dollars. I was in heaven until…

A new one came out on the market. The shoe plate could now be positioned in the portrait mode by twisting a knob at the base of the shoe plate and tilting the platform to the side. What an innovation! The legs collapsed fairly easy although I constantly forgot to tighten them once they were fully extended from time to time! Timber!…

At this point, I have three tripods.   I took the the first one traveling as it was light aluminum and as long as I wasn’t using a long lens, it worked great. The second had the weight to hold longer lenses but was just as long as the first one when the legs collapsed (down to around 40 inches) and heavier to carry around. The third one was just like the second except the platform/shoe plate could be flipped to the side for portrait shots.

We’ll skip the next two tripods that joined the family as one was given to me and the second one I purchased thinking I was “moving up” with my equipment because I paid more for it. The reality was that I only purchased the company name. The tripod turned out to be the same as the third one I had purchased for much less. That makes five tripods for one camera!

Then a few years ago, the photography world comes out with this awesome portable tripod. This time I did a lot more research on the subject. I found one that folded down to only 16.5 inches, fit in its own pouch (or a backpack), was sturdy enough to handle my equipment, was easy to assemble, came with a built in counter weight for those heavier lenses, the shoe plate sat on a “ball” (ball head) and could be set in many directions, and many more extras that all my other ones combined did not have. Eureka!

It is the only one I use now. It is a Benro A 1692T tripod. It cost a bit more ($300.00) but well worth the money. Three years later, I still love it.

IMG_1184

Today, there are less expensive portable tripods. Neewer is one company that sells them on Amazon. And I am sure there are others but I am no longer in the market for one. Currently, I own three tripods but really only use one, my Benro. The other two are for remote flash set ups (fill light).

You might ask, “what did you do with the other three”? Sold them on eBay and put the money toward my Benro, of course! There is always a market for used equipment.

A few things to remember when looking for a tripod: Make sure it can handle the weight of your equipment, has sturdy legs and if at all possible, a counterweight hook under the shoe plate to steady the tripod if necessary (this is especially handy when your ground is a bit rocky). And most importantly, the tripod does all that you need or want it to do.

How many are too many tripods? That depends on how you feel about tripods. For me, I am happily down to three; two that sit in my closet until I need them and one that I carry everywhere.

Have a great day and happy shooting!

How To Start Shooting with Confidence

03 Friday Nov 2017

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Still afraid of your camera?  Are you intimidated by all the things it can do?  That was me a few of years ago when I went digital.

My journey into the world of photography started when I graduated from grammar school and was given a point and shoot film camera for my graduation.  Luckily, it came a few rolls of film.  Back then, having a camera was great but it had its downside too.  You had to pay for film and then pay for processing (developing) of the film later.  Even if you had a darkroom to develop film at home, all the chemicals and paper cost money!  This meant that when I took a picture, I had to really think about what I was doing so I didn’t “waste” film.

Today, the photography world has changed in so many ways.  You can take a photo with your phone, pad, or camera.  A camera can be mounted on your helmut or a phone to a  drone to take aerial shots.  This article is not about those types of “cameras”.  It is only related to the DSLR.

I have been shooting images for, well, a half a century and am still learning.  That is the key; keep learning.  The DSLR camera today certainly does a lot of the work for the photographer. Its advantage over the old SLR  is that it saves money on film and in Auto Mode (almost always) correctly reads light, distance and speed.  All one has to do is focus on the subject matter.  For most people who shoot photos, this is great.  No need to figure out f/stops, speed, or ISO settings to capture that smile, the deer in the field, or the setting sun.

So, the simple answer to gaining confidence is to just take out your camera and use it on the auto mode all the time.  But, that doesn’t always capture the image you are looking for.  It’s “brain” is limited to what it is programmed to do and doesn’t always adjust correctly for lighting (person in foreground comes out perfect but the background does not), for the many variations of light the eye perceives and adjusts to automatically, or even what you want in focus.

A bit more complicated answer to gaining confidence with your camera is to do the tiresome, boring, and any other blah word you can think of and read the manual.   It is filled with magical stuff if you can get through it!

In the past, only four things really mattered with the SLR:  focus,  light (ISO), shutter speed, and depth of field (f/stop).  Get those right and you had a good chance your roll of film had some great images on it .  Today, the DSLR cameras do so much more in-camera.  Colors come out vibrant, black and white as well as color can both be shot at the same time, sepia shots are done in camera, different modes to shoot in, and the list goes on.  But most importantly, you can shoot and delete as much as you want without the “money penalty”, i.e., film development!  We’ve come a long way from the Box camera.

My first DSLR made me crazy trying to figure out all the different icons on the piece of equipment.  Then add to that, taking the information the camera gave me on the back screen and attempting to use my knowledge of SLRs (single lens reflex cameras of old) to get the image I wanted from it!  Very frustrating and I seriously thought of just staying with film.  Of course, in the long run, doing that would become very expensive.  My confidence was at its lowest and I found I really didn’t want to pick up my DSLR at all and so it collected dust for a while.  I really had no confidence that I would be able to use a DSLR (digital single lens reflex) as I had my older film cameras.   I even spent money on classes to hopefully improve my ability to use DSLRs.  Frustration abounded.

Then a lightbulb when off and I now share this “brilliant” idea with you!  Read the manual.  But break it down into small pieces and absorb small portions.  Keep that manual in your camera bag.  Don’t be ashamed to pull it out when you are out shooting.  I have… many times, and still do.  Who can remember everything in that manual?

Boost your confidence by taking time to learn how to shoot in the different modes.  It does work. As I am a “hands on” type of personality and reading how to use my camera was extremely painful.  I only managed to get through the first few pages before I gave up.  So, I finally followed the method below and found it worked for me.  My confidence grew rapidly after that.  Use both your camera and manual for each step.

Use the “auto” mode for about a week.  See how it works.  The next week, go to the Aperture mode (you set the f/stop and the camera does the rest). The following week, switch to changing the shutter speed (Tv on Canon and S on Nikon).  Once you have learned the basics on how to use these three modes, try a week of the programmable mode.  The last one to try for a week is the manual mode.  By the time you get to this one, you will understand how your camera works and how each change you make in camera impacts the image you produce.  Manual mode gives you control over everything.  It’s not for everyone, but I use it with certain types of light because it gives me complete control over the image.

Your camera may not have all the modes I mentioned above, but working with your camera the same way by going through whatever modes it does have, will accomplish the same thing.  You will “know” your camera and your confidence with grow with that knowledge.

Technology is constantly changing.  What is new today is old tomorrow.  Learn the basics of photography, i.e., shutter speed, f/stop, ISO, and focus, and how each interacts with each other.  Confidence is grown by practice and then by continuing to learn.  Grab your camera and go!

 

What’s the point?

02 Friday Oct 2015

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When you look at a picture, your brain immediately decides what the image is all about. It could be a family party, a wedding, a beautiful landscape shot, or a wonderful pet portrait. The more you look at a particular image, say a family gathering, you start to pick out things that don’t hit you the first time around. Aunt Sally holding an empty wine glass, Joey spitting up on Uncle Tim, the birthday cake about to fall off the table, or maybe that everyone has the same, silly smile on their face! These are fun shots that years from now will be priceless.

But if you are looking to shoot more refined images that you would like to hang on your wall, sell as fine art, or as stock photos, now your thought process has to change from point and click to “what do I want to the viewer to see and yes, feel”.  What do you want to evoke in the person viewing your piece of work?  Beauty, vastness, happiness, lightheartedness, sorrow or sadness, life?  Unlike a quick snap photo you take at a party, the image you create needs to “speak” to people who look at it.   It is similar to those artists who paint beautiful pieces of work on canvasses.  They don’t simply slap on different colors of paint onto the canvass.  In their minds, they already have an image and a feeling that they want to portray.

Japenese Garden Bridge-

This image was taken in the spring at the Chicago Botanic Gardens.  The bridge crosses a man-made lake and joins the Japanese Garden island with the main land.  It took me many shots from different angles to get what I wanted.  My thought process was that I wanted to show the changing season. The water still has ice on it in some areas and the trees are just beginning to bud.  It still looks cold and not very inviting with the cold blue sky but if you look closely, you can see the tiny buds on the trees and bushes (the promise of warmer days).  The red bush in the forefront is just about to bloom.  Although the feel is of a cold day, one can see the beginning of new life about to burst forth.  What do you see?

On another one of my jaunts to the Chicago Botanic Gardens with my camera, I found a very unusual friendship between between a cactus plant and an aloe plant.  As you can see in the image, the cactus has an “injury” and the aloe plant appears to reaching out to the injured one as if to console it, even though itself has a broken “arm”.

A Friend in Need

A Friend in Need

The cactus was about two feet high so I had to get low to capture the feeling of a friend consoling a friend.  Ironically, when I went back a few months after this shot, the workers decided to pull the one on the right away from the “hug” position, clipped the hanging “arm” and repositioned it on a straight pole to hold the plant upright.  I was so glad I caught this image when I did!

What did you see when you first looked at this image?  Did it strike you funny or did it just look like a picture of two plants?  Was it the storyline that made the image or the image that caught your attention?

Being in the right place at the right time can make for some great pictures.  But that “right time” does not happen often enough to count on.  So, remember to look beyond what you see right in front of you.  Practice thinking outside the box.  Change your angle and you may see a totally different image.  The light angle will change, the perception will change, and so will how you look at the world change when you take your next picture!