"Stable Genius?" (July 2022)
Confession: I made this photograph without a tripod.
As a landscape photographer, I know that's a cardinal sin. I am expected to trumpet the importance of always using a tripod to take the tack-sharpest photos possible. I am supposed to wax poetic about the meditative nature of unfolding my tripod and how doing so permits me the time to slow down and ply my craft and truly discover the beauty before me. I am supposed to achieve inner peace through tripod construction.
But truth be told, I avoid using a it when I don't need one. I like my tripod, but it's just a tool to take stable photograph. In fact, many of the photos I share here are shot hand-held.
I made this photograph here, of the Ammonoosuc Ravine waterfall, last July while I was out hiking a few peaks, including Mount Washington. This waterfall is about halfway up the trail, and I didn't want to bring the tripod along for just this photo.
With waterfall images like this one, it can be difficult-to-nearly-impossible to go hand-held, since you need to slow down the shutter speed to get that silky water feel and you typically want to use a polarizing lens, which reduces the amount of light coming in, to eliminate glare on the water. So when I got to the falls, I made a composition that allowed me to tuck the camera and lens up against a tree trunk and brace it with my hand on the other side. In some instances, I have even been able to make a cradle with the camera strap by looping it around the trunk and dropping the lens into the basket of the loop. I guess you could call it a "tree-pod".
I am sure there are some of you that have tried some variatioon of this also, so as you know, the tree-pod is by no means a perfect solution. It drastically cuts down the freedom of perspective you can achieve, since you need the camera near a tree. You can also only pull this of with not-so-long exposure shutter speeds. This one here was at 1/13. And it was especially challenging , since the tree I initially wanted to use as a tree-pod was holding the branch and leaves dropping in from the top of the frame, which were critical to balancing out the composition. I couldn't use that tree to stabilize the camera, because the pressure would move the trunk and the leaves would sway and blur in the shot.
At the end of the day, even if it is a landscpae photography sin, I consider it a win, since it saved me from lugging a tripod up three mountains.
"Stable Genius?" (July 2022)
Confession: I made this photograph without a tripod.
As a landscape photographer, I know that's a cardinal sin. I am expected to trumpet the importance of always using a tripod to take the tack-sharpest photos possible. I am supposed to wax poetic about the meditative nature of unfolding my tripod and how doing so permits me the time to slow down and ply my craft and truly discover the beauty before me. I am supposed to achieve inner peace through tripod construction.
But truth be told, I avoid using a it when I don't need one. I like my tripod, but it's just a tool to take stable photograph. In fact, many of the photos I share here are shot hand-held.
I made this photograph here, of the Ammonoosuc Ravine waterfall, last July while I was out hiking a few peaks, including Mount Washington. This waterfall is about halfway up the trail, and I didn't want to bring the tripod along for just this photo.
With waterfall images like this one, it can be difficult-to-nearly-impossible to go hand-held, since you need to slow down the shutter speed to get that silky water feel and you typically want to use a polarizing lens, which reduces the amount of light coming in, to eliminate glare on the water. So when I got to the falls, I made a composition that allowed me to tuck the camera and lens up against a tree trunk and brace it with my hand on the other side. In some instances, I have even been able to make a cradle with the camera strap by looping it around the trunk and dropping the lens into the basket of the loop. I guess you could call it a "tree-pod".
I am sure there are some of you that have tried some variatioon of this also, so as you know, the tree-pod is by no means a perfect solution. It drastically cuts down the freedom of perspective you can achieve, since you need the camera near a tree. You can also only pull this of with not-so-long exposure shutter speeds. This one here was at 1/13. And it was especially challenging , since the tree I initially wanted to use as a tree-pod was holding the branch and leaves dropping in from the top of the frame, which were critical to balancing out the composition. I couldn't use that tree to stabilize the camera, because the pressure would move the trunk and the leaves would sway and blur in the shot.
At the end of the day, even if it is a landscpae photography sin, I consider it a win, since it saved me from lugging a tripod up three mountains.