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Be One With Your Tripod – Photography Challenge

Be One With Your Tripod – Photography Challenge

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This one is going to push your boundaries, guaranteed. But if you’re ready and motivated to take your photography to next level, let’s do this!

The tripod – your friend and nemesis

One thing I see over and over in my workshops is people who haul their tripod to the location, and then leave it in their car most of the time – even when dim light warrants it, like inside a  building. They’d rather crank the ISO and get photos that are noisy, then get out the tripod and actually use it.

The world of digital has made photography accessible to nearly everyone, which is a good thing. But, highly electronic and automatic cameras have also made it really easy for us to get lazy. I admit it – I too am guilty of this sometimes myself!

Photo by: fensterbm
Photo by: fensterbm (CC image license)

Any of these excuses sound familiar?

  1. It’s too cold out, I want to shoot fast and get inside where it’s warm.
  2. My tripod is too heavy, I can’t carry it around all day.
  3. My tripod isn’t really that sturdy, I can keep it still by handholding it better myself.
  4. I don’t need it, I can lean my camera on a fence, or a rock.
  5. People are waiting for me, I have to be quick.
  6. I forgot to bring a tripod with me.
  7. The tripod insert (to connect the camera to the tripod head) is missing or I forgot it.
  8. I hate my tripod.
  9. I don’t have one.

If you have heard yourself saying #2, #3, #8 or #9 above, read: Stress Free Tips for Buying a Tripod, it will help you select the right one for you that you will actually bring with you. You must have one that is heavy enough to support your camera in a slight breeze, but not too cumbersome that it stays in the trunk more often that than it gets out.

Why use a tripod?

tripod-challenge-quote

If you feel yourself think about opting out of this challenge – keep in mind, this may be exactly the one you need to do! Ask yourself what you’re afraid of, what have you got to lose? What have you got to gain?

Let’s look at what using a tripod does from the technical, to the less obvious benefits:

The first three points above are the obvious ones, but what are the benefits of the last two you may ask?

Photographing people

Using a tripod for large groups helps you engage with the people, especially kids, and maintains your focus and composition.
Using a tripod for large groups helps you engage with the people, especially kids, and maintains your focus (use autofocus and turn it off, or back-button focus) and composition.

The benefit of getting away from the camera when you’re photographing people is that you can have a real, face to face, interaction with them. They get to look at your face, not into a lens. Most people are nervous when they are being photographed – in fact, I recommend that you try it yourself. Go get photos done of yourself, or your family, so you can experience what it’s like to be in front of the camera. You can hire a professional, or get a fellow camera buff to take photos of your family, and you take photos of theirs as a swap.

The bottom line is, staring at a thing, the front of your lens – does NOT help people relax. They don’t know if they’re doing it right or not. They need your guidance, and usually just talking to them is the best way to get people to loosen up. By putting your camera on a tripod, and using a remote trigger to fire it, the interaction shifts to a more personal one and you will get better expressions from your subjects.

People want to look at a face, yours, not the lens.
People want to look at a face, yours, not the lens.

Slowing down

Seems the whole world in in a perpetual state of hurry up. We can’t wait for the tea kettle to boil, or the microwave to heat up our food without tapping our foot impatiently. Traffic makes us have road rage, and lines at the grocery store make some people go ballistic.

So isn’t it time you slowed down and actually stopped to enjoy the thing you like to do most? Hopefully that’s photography, or you wouldn’t be here.

using a tripod for indoor photography

But that’s just part of the reason slowing down is good. Too often, rushing only yields an image that is out of focus, has the wrong exposure, is off-color, or is just plain uninteresting. Stop to check all your camera settings, especially if you are new to photography, or trying out some manual modes for the first time. Review your exposure and White Balance and make adjustments if necessary. Zoom in on the image on the LCD screen to check focus. Lastly, look at the image – really look at it. Do you have a clear subject? Is it well lit and composed? Will it make your friends go “Oooh! Aaaah!”? If not – take your time and tweak things until you are happy with the image you see.

Make a decision to adopt this mantra right now, and watch your photography improve:

I take my time when shooting and get it right in-camera. Fixing it later is not an option. Slow and steady wins the prize.

tripod-challenge-slow-down
Photo by: Aftab Uzzaman

Try this acronym to help you remember all the things you need to check and review: C S L S C

  • C – camera settings: review the exposure via the histogram, white balance, ISO, aperture and shutter speed.
  • S – sharpness: check to see if it is in focus, and as sharp as possible. Do you have the depth of field you want? If not go back to camera settings and check your aperture.
  • L – lighting: does the lighting create the mood and story you want for your image? How can it be better if not?
  • S – subject and story: is there a well defined and clear subject in your photo? Does the image tell the story you want for this scene?
  • C – composition: is the image arranged in a dynamic way to catch the viewer’s attention?

Last Photography Challenge

In December I set you off to try to make an abstract image using intentional blur. Well, from what I saw in the comments you all had a lot of fun with that one, and learned a few things too. There were over 150 comments and many great images shared.

30 entries matched the criteria for the contest, and from them, one was randomly selected.

And the winner is . . .

Drumroll please – Tania Jacobs

Congratulations you have won our 4 Weeks to Better Photography course, where you will get to practice and learn even more. We’ve already been in touch and Tania is delighted to how her 2016 has begun.

Details for This Month’s Challenge

Here are the requirements to be eligible for the prize:

  1. Use your tripod EVERY time you go shooting over the next six weeks. This will on the honor system, so if you say you did it, we will believe you – be honest please, to keep it fair for everyone. If you have a legitimate reason for not using one, like you’re shooting a soccer game or something – just put that in the notes, we’ll probably give you one free pass. But do try and use it for everything possible.
  2. Upload at least one of your photos into the comments section below.
  3. Please tell us about your experience using your tripod. Did you see an improvement in your images over the month? Did the tripod annoy you? Did you get used to it after a while, how long? Did you make friends with your tripod? Have you decide to never go anywhere without it again? Do tell! ***NOTE: this part is necessary to be entered into the draw – you must tell us what you learned and experienced.***

Deadline for entry is:  February 28th 2016, 10pm MST (-6 UTC) that gives you almost six weeks.

Banner: Learn Portrait Photography FundamentalsThe Prize:

This month’s winner (selected randomly from all eligible entries) will receive our Portrait Fundamentals Lighting Course (retail value: $149 USD).

Cheers,
Darlene-1-250x130.png

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Comments

  2. Hi Darlene, I am quite new to your site and enjoying your informative entries! Tripod is a great way to slow down and gain some extra time for proper composition and camera settings. I took this shot in Manual mode (using for the very first time) in Munich, Germany @ BMW headquarters. It was quite a chilly night but I am sure that I will always take my tripod with me. Thank you! Cheers, Csaba

  3. Thank you for the tripod challenge. I have owned a digital camera for a long time and just began to really get more serious about photography in the last year. I recently received a tripod as a gift to replace a lighter, flimsy one I owned for quit some time. This challenge caused me to become familiar with the new tripod and more comfortable with using it. In the past, I only used the tripod for night shots and landscape shots. Now, however, I am quit comfortable with using it for portrait shots as well. It only took two or three sessions to attain that level of comfort. The greatest improvement I’ve noticed is better focus with less blur than before. In the future, I will have no problem making sure my tripod is with me whenever and wherever I am photographing. Referencing your challenge title, “I am now one with my tripod.” Please provide any feedback you can about the photos I submitted. Thank you again.

    • Great job on being one with your tripod! The clock image is interesting, sort of abstract but you know what it is still. The one of the houses and tree though I’m not sure what the subject is meant to be. What did you want us to look at and see here? My eye goes from the tree to the roofs and back again.

  4. Hi Kim -Nice photos!
    In retirement my interest in photography has been rekindled and I view myself very much as a beginner. It is encouraging and really good to read from someone how the tripod has improved the images to tac sharp standard as I guess that is what we all aspire to. I also found it a little fiddly and inconvenient and in the beginning a very windy evening demonstrated for me the importance of checking that everything was set and secure! Setting it up I now find quite easy. Now it is good to be hands free, able to look around and engage with the environment. Slowly I am getting better at ALL the other required aspects of the task, like camera setting options, composition etc etc … Sometimes quite disappointed with results but Improved sharpness is good and I find using the tripod takes me further along the journey of learning – mistakes aside, it helps me think more about what and why I am taking the shot.

  5. Hi Darlene, I started using my tripod almost 2 years ago when I first started to really pursue learning how to take better photos and I found your free e-book 10 Challenges. At first I was sporadic in using it as I found it fiddly and inconvenient. My husband noticed me struggling with my OLD aluminum tripod and bought a new one for me for my birthday that year and it was much better! I used it a bit more but still didn’t like to carry it with me and /or would often forget it. However, after a few photography night classes at my local college over the past year I have discovered how valuable a tripod is and have finally started to remember to take it with me everywhere, no matter what time of day or what type of photography I’m going to do. I went to Montreal a few weeks ago and it was -10 to -14 and beautiful sun every day. I did a lot of outdoor daytime shooting and ALL my shots were taken on my tripod except for some panoramic skyline shots and some ground level shots of the snow up at Mt. Royal. And of course all my indoor shots were on my tripod as well (encouraged by the fact that I don’t have a flash at all on (or for) my Sony A7II). I found that my shots were all tac sharp and looked so much better than if I had done them hand held, and, because it takes time to set up the tripod shot I found that I spent a lot more time choosing my composition and framing of my shots. I can notice a definite improvement in the quality of my photos now. My husband commented recently that if he had know how much I was going to end up using my tripod he would have bought me one of the fancy (& expensive) lightweight ones – maybe for my next birthday:)

  6. Ah, the Tripod … don’t go out without it! On a recent brief trip to Sydney I made sure the tripod was packed BUT then felt ‘out about with visitors’ didn’t quite lend itself to carrying it around with me – big mistake, they would not have bothered in the least so I was really giving way to my own anxieties of being too conspicuous. Anyway in the Opera House precinct and facing the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge the nearest thing to a tripod was a concrete ledge. Here is the shot I took: f8; 24mm; Aperture Priority; ISO Auto 1600; S 1/10s
    Also attached is another shot taken early this morning around sunrise at a different location – using tripod!: Aperture Priority; f 6.3; 24mm; Ex Comp -1.7EV; ISO 200; S 1/320

    • Good notice on the anxiety being all yours, not your friends putting it on you. Do you know why the first one is so dark? Did you underexposure it on purpose? The one with the bridge has nice composition, foreground interest with the walkway, and good exposure.

  7. So busy have not been out with the tripod yet!!!! Ggggr.
    …and yes Darlene once I get to using the tripod regularly I must invest in a lightweight one.

  8. One of the biggest challenge for me is to capture, well to see one, aurora borealis. Night photography is always fun to do even in winter in cold weather situation. My next challenge is to capture the Milky Way!

    • Hi Daniel – good job capturing this it’s a tricky subject. Next time – try and get a lot closer, or use a longer lens. You have a lot of foreground snow and while there are some nice leading lines taking you into the scene it feels really far away and the aurora gets a bit lost. Try cropping off about 2/3 of the snow and see how that looks.

  9. I used my tripod to do some long exposure photography on a very windy day. I was also trying out my new 10 stop graduated filter (which still needs some work hence the color difference to the left). The tripod allowed me to really extend the times for a silky smooth water. But a lesson was learnt. I took my camera off the tripod and was packing it away, when I turned around it was just in time to see the wind pick it up and blow it over the side of the wharf!!!!!!!! Bye bye tripod (thank goodness the camera was still not attached…I did say it was a very windy day). Always ensure your tripod is either weighed down or anchored. My new tripod is sturdier but still great for transporting.

  10. Two thoughts come to mind in regards to tripod usage. First may be the tendency to setup a tripod (referring mostly to landscapes) and leave it in that position versus exploring an area first to see if there are better vantage points. Number two is to make sure you turn off any in camera or lens stabilization when shooting on a tripod. I may have stated the obvious to some people, and for those I apologize.

  11. Well here goes … a very, very novice photographer enjoying the experience and having lots of fun experimenting with the camera … whoah, there is so much more to learn than just the settings. Now … thanks to some very kind friends who share the Xmas spirit of giving, I now have a tripod and remote shutter release. Here is a shot I took yesterday of a little Norfolk Honey Eater who frequents my garden. These little birds are quite difficult to capture in a shot so the tripod was more than useful. I set it up, selected a spot where I think the bird (s) would seek nectar from the flowers and waited, waited, waited … in all I took 50 shots and like this one the best. I have cropped it but made no other adjustments. Using Nikon D3300 with the kit lens 18-55mm, I applied these settings: auto focus then switched to manual so that the camera would not keep refocusing with the different shots; f5.6; 50mm; aperture priority ISO (auto) 200; 1/100s

    • Good idea on setting it up, so you aren’t close enough to scare the bird. You might want to try different settings next time to try and freeze his movement – you’d need a faster shutter speed, like maybe try 1/500th. And also since you’ve locked focus in one spot and you can’t guarantee the bird will be in exactly that spot – you might want more depth of field too like f/8 or even f/11. So your ISO will have to be higher. You’d have to set those up using Manual mode and just make sure the light doesn’t change.

  13. Just got back from San Francisco and took this one with the Manfrotto tripod I got for Christmas. I used the self-timer on my camera, as I pretty much hate my infrared release and don’t have a cable release (yet). I use a tripod a fair bit, as I mainly shoot landscapes. (Because the thought of shooting people is still scary…hehehe!)

  14. Hello Darlene,
    thank you for the challenge! I am a bit gear addicted type of photographer and I have at least 5 different tripods and couple of ball heads. I have got a nice backpack to carry all my stuff (including tripod/s), but I still didn’t started to use it. This is a big opportunity to start right now and use tripod even for taking “portraits” of my three years old granddaughter. I thing we will enjoy lot of fun. But mainly I am looking forward to put my Sony mirrorless on the tripod with Canon lenses and focus manually.

  15. I hate my tripod, even got a new and better one recently and truthfully have used it twice. I find lugging it about hard, setting it up and using it equally hard. I also find with a big dslr AND a tripod I look semi pro but I am very much a learner, I feel all eyes upon me.. So this challenge is for me, definitely will start taking it with me every where and hopefully getting it out of the car..lol.
    I also have a mono pod, is this included to use in the challenge?

    • I’m going to make a judgement call her seeing as how Darlene is away in Cuba right now. I’m going to say that the challenge is about TRI pods, so a monopod wouldn’t qualify.

      I think her intent with the tripod includes “slowing down”, choosing a location, setting up the tripod and making use of the differences a tripod lends to a photograph.

      I’m wrong a lot, so I could be wrong, but it’s what I’m going with for now.

    • The best advice I ever got came from a public speaking instructor. She said, “If you don’t feel confident, just pretend like you do.” I got an A in that class and faked confidence on many occasions since. Don’t be intimidated by people watching you. You must look important and like you know what you are doing!! People look because they are curious. And you never know what knowledge you may gain or impart when you meet a stranger. Good luck!!

  16. Since I started doing long exposure shots ( night, water ) my tripod is more comfortable than shooting handheld. Even a multi site portrait shoot of a granddaughter went all tripod. Great challenge for folks who don’t use theirs.

    • That’s really interesting Jim. I had not used a tripod until recently so for me it is a huge challenge. Initially I found it very awkward but I am surprised how quickly one adapts. I still feel rather conspicuous when using and haven’t done any portrai shots yet. Once tripod is set up I do find it feels better having hands free and engaging with subject of interest on a different level.

      • You’ll find, as you go along with your photography, that using your tripod allows you to use techniques that you just can’t do very easily or at hand held. Examples might be a long exposure shot of the Milky Way, night shots in your city, closeup shots of flowers; lather rinse and repeat on so many different subjects. Soon, you’ll find yourself irritated if you can’t use the three legged thing.

        • Thanks for the encouragement Jim – confidence slowly building and acknowledging mistakes that are only recognised through practice. Dare I admit this? Yes, why not … went out the other night just after sunset for more practice with the tripod, not to mention camera settings …. whoah, windy conditions challenging BUT I later realised that camera wobble on tripod mount was not due to the wind but rather my not checking ALL tripod fixtures/sets properly. Anyway I did manage to get a few reasonable photographs, perhaps not the greatest but hey … practice, practice practice will surely benefit.

  17. After becoming an aurora addict, and a convert to slow motion water beach photographs, a tripod is now second nature to me, and for close up work, i find even more surprising how essential a tripod is for that too. I had heavy tripod but simply had to leave it behind most of the time i was out, as using a heavy canon DSLR and carrying more than one lens, just meant i couldn’t carry all my gear. I’ve changed tripods now, and it’s a breeze. there is NO DOUBT at all that a tripod will help you get the best out of every shot.

    • Hello Fionn111
      I am going to do this challenge as I feel it will help me to be a better photographer! But first things first I need to buy a tripod! I have 2 table top ones but need a larger one. SO, I was wondering which tripod did you end up buying? I have researched many but would LOVE to hear from this group (and you) on your choice! Thank you!

  18. I have made a practice of using my tripod whenever possible, for landscapes it’s a must. A monopod is also very helpful and is standard equipment when shooting sports. I find that the tripod slows me down and gives me the opportunity to think more technically and artistically about the shot. Camera stability is a plus and I almost always use an external shutter release. The tripod helps you “make” photographs instead of “snapping” pictures.
    The included photo was taken at sunrise, on a tripod with a cable release in India at the Jal Mahal in Jaipur.

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