Right Tool For The Job: Your Tripod

May 14, 2009

I have a nice tripod.  Its not a really nice tripod but its nice enough.  For $100 at Adorama its the kind of nice my budget approves of.  This is aimed at an audience that either can’t afford a carbon fiber tripod with ball head or can but haven’t been able to justify spending more on their tripod than they may have spent on their camera.

As a backdrop, I’d like to discuss the following photo:

Boating, Central Park

Using the qualities of this photograph I hope to explain why you must carefully choose your equipment when shopping on the lower end of the price scale for equipment.  I am the owner of two tripods, one useful and one which has proven itself absolutely useless. 

I needed a tripod that could handle my Mamiya RB67 which is a monster.  As I was primarily expecting to use the tripod for performances or in the studio where I was already lugging a bunch of crap around the entire concept of portability was thrown out in favor of stability and low-cost.   The Slik is indeed stable.  Outstandingly so.  I feel comfortable loading my 8 pound camera onto the tripod and swinging it around.  It doesn’t wobble, it doesn’t tip, and its easily adjustable.  You get the feeling that you could beat a bear into submission with this tripod if called upon to perform that duty.  And if you can tote the damn thing out into the wilderness where the bears are known to roam you probably have the raw strength to give a bear a sound dubbing.

The tripod is six pounds and it doesn’t fit into a backpack nor could you reasonably strap it into the carrier provided on photo backpacks..   The complimentary tripod bag is invaluable (and you can fit several light stands and umbrellas into it as well) as its absolutely unwieldy to carry around.  In purchasing a computer there’s the old saying, “better, faster, cheaper: pick two”.  With tripods its “stronger, more compact, cheaper”.   The problem is that I like to bike out to locations and the tripod is uncomfortable to carry around and awkward on a bicycle.   Clearly I needed something smaller.

So I picked up one of those $25 ultra-compact tripods.  The tripod fits easily within my shoulder bag and weights next to nothing.  It features three spindly telescoping legs and handles like a drunken spider when deployed.  The maximum weight allowance is less than three pounds which fits most compact digital cameras and more importantly for me, anything that is comprised of plastic and empty space such as the Holga 120WPC pinhole camera which I’ve discussed at length.

I figured it was a match made in heaven.  The Holga fits in the shoulder bag, the tripod fits in the shoulder bag, everyone’s a winner.   Even with both tripod and camera shoved into the shoulder bag copious space remains for film and the light meter.  I was free to hop on my bicycle or comfortably take the train without a second thought.

There’s really no such thing as a free lunch.  While ultra-compact and ultra-light the new tripod lacked two essential qualities, inertia and rigidity.  There simply isn’t enough mass to withstand bumps and even breezes.   The spindly legs flex at the lightest touch and then spring back.  The end result is a tripod that’s in constant motion.  For a camera such as the Holga 120WPC which requires long exposures even a slight shake or shudder from the wind will show up during the several seconds that the shutter remains open.  Even opening the shutter can set the tripod into motion.

I included the above photo taken in Central Park as it lacks any sharpness.  Even the rocks are in soft focus.  The wind may move the water and shake the trees over the duration of a second long exposure but the rocks should not move.   The below photo taken with the heavier Slik tripod in the Botanical Garden shows that with a sturdy tripod certain elements in a photo can be expected to remain in sharp focus.

Brooklyn Botanical Garden

So I’m stuck with a $25 tripod that can’t be relied upon to hold a camera steady for a long exposure.   I’m somewhat unsure as to the practical use of the tripod that isn’t sturdy enough to hold a camera still for a long exposure.  Unless you’re indoors and using a wireless remote to trigger the shutter on a compact digital camera you might as well hand hold the camera.   Its great for self-portraits, still lifes, amateur pornography, and other indoor settings but you don’t need an ultra-compact tripod if you’re just going to stay home.

The solution is most likely to take a plunge and spend more on a tripod than I did on my last three cameras.   The Slik provides me with the rigidity and sheer mass that I require for performance photography but lacks any reasonable portability.   Attempting to cure the portability problem by sacrificing the essential qualities of a tripod was just a waste of money.

Posted in Product Review