The Wild Photographer
Learn techniques, tips, and tricks for improving your wildlife, travel, landscape, and general nature photography with Court Whelan. Whether you consider yourself a beginner, serious hobbyist, or advanced professional, this is the way to rapidly understand and implement new skills to elevate your photography to new heights.
The Wild Photographer
All about Tripods (and other stabilization) and My Recommendations
In this episode of The Wild Photographer, host Court Whelan dives deep into the world of tripods and stabilization techniques essential for photographers. He discusses the importance of tripods, the differences between cheap and expensive options, and the various types of tripod heads. The episode also covers travel tripods, monopods, and alternative stabilization methods, along with recommendations for top brands. Finally, Court shares tips for achieving silky water photography, emphasizing the necessity of using a tripod for slow shutter speeds.
Takeaways
- Tripods are essential for slow shutter photography.
- Investing in a quality tripod can enhance your photography.
- The type of tripod head can significantly affect usability.
- Carbon fiber tripods offer a great balance of weight and stability.
- Travel tripods should be sturdy enough for field use.
- Monopods provide a lightweight alternative for stabilization.
- GorillaPods are versatile for travel and quick setups.
- Silky water photography requires careful shutter speed management.
- Understanding tripod leg mechanisms is crucial for ease of use.
- Choosing the right tripod brand can impact your photography experience.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Tripods and Stabilization
04:04 All About Tripods
08:02 Choosing the Right Tripod: Cheap vs. Expensive
16:30 Understanding Tripod Heads and Their Functions
22:03 Tripod Plates and Mounts
23:42 Travel Tripods
25:48 Other Stabilization (monopods et al.)
31:03 My Favorite Brands and my Top Tripod for Everything
35:04 Listener Question: Silky Water Photography...Techniques and Tips
39:04 Setting a Timer Delay for ALL Tripod Photos
Sponsors (give them a look!)
Arthelper.Ai - an amazing AI tool to help you market, showcase, and sell your photography. Use promo code WILD at checkout for a 30 day free trial of their pro version.
Shimoda Designs Action Camera Bag - the ultimate camera backpack that is as good of a backpack as it is in protecting (and accessing) your camera gear!
LensRentals.com - use promo code WildPhotographer15 for 15% of renting (or buying) lenses
The best way you can help me and this podcast is to subscribe to my YouTube channel here.
Instagram - @court_whelan
Hi everyone, welcome back to the Wild Photographer. I'm your host, court Whalen, and today's episode is a deep dive in all about tripods and other stabilization and I'm going to give you my top recommendations throughout, but especially at the end of the episode, so make sure you stay tuned for that. In addition, I'm going to have a very short companion video to this because I want to be able to showcase some of the gear that I'm using, so there's a separate video I will be posting on my YouTube channel. That's just at Court Whalen on YouTube. So if you head on over there after you see this episode, you're going to get a lot more visual, kind of tangible evidence of what I'm trying to portray in this podcast.
Speaker 1:But before we begin, I wanted to give a shout out to the sponsors of this episode. The first is arthelperai. Arthelper is an amazing AI tool. Ai is, of course, all the rage right now, and for very, very good reason. We photographers shouldn't be left out, of course, right. So Arthelper AI is an amazing tool to do all sorts of things like crafting blog posts and sorting through photos and a lot of extra artificial intelligence. Help for you to become a better photographer, to be a more productive and profitable photographer as well. Special offer from Art Helper AI right now is, if you use the promo code WILD that's just W-I-L-D, like wild photographer that you know so well by now If you head on over to your website and use that promo code, you will get a 30-day free trial of their pro software for Art Helper. This is an amazing tool. Again, I've been playing around with it, messing around with it for the last little bit now and I am just having awesome results. It's a really, really incredible tool. We, as photographers, want to spend more time photographing, maybe more time editing and creating the art out of our photography, and we want to spend less time on the promo work, the marketing work, the extra sort of stuff like the social media, the blog posts that should go along with it, and they're a wonderful partner of this podcast, so big thanks to them. Go check them out.
Speaker 1:Another new sponsor is Shimoda Designs. I think I've found finally found my be-all, end-all one camera bag for all trips, all excursions, all photo work. It's incredible. This is going to be the active version. It's called active. That is the model of their bags, but all their bags are pretty phenomenal, but I have to say this active one it's, the 45 liter is simply phenomenal. I've been using it, I've been packing and unpacking my bag, just kind of putting it through the ringer, and I'm gearing up for a really big trip in Nepal about the various types of bags out there and I have to say I am absolutely sold that this is going to be my next bag for all my expeditions near and far. Did I mention it's also waterproof and it carries like a normal trekking backpack. So it's got hip straps and all the different doohickeys that make it very comfortable to wear. Yes, waterproof and wears like a normal backpack. So again, amazing, amazing bags there at Shimoda Designs.
Speaker 1:And last but not least, I want to give a plug for myself. I'm often asked how can you, as listeners to this podcast, help me, the wild photographer and Court Whalen? The best way, honestly, the number one way, is to head on over to my YouTube channel and click subscribe, and it does help support all the gear and all the subscriptions I need to edit and produce this podcast. So big, big thanks. If you do head over to YouTube, search Court Whalen that's just C-O-U-R-T like a tennis court and W-H-E-L-A-N and hit subscribe on my channel. Not least is that you can actually watch all these new podcasts as well. And, like I mentioned earlier, I'm going to post a very special little segment of this podcast where I show off some of the tripod gear. So it's a nice companion to this podcast itself. But hey, without further ado, let's get into what you really came here for, and it's all about tripods and other stabilization, with my recommendations. Here we go.
Speaker 1:So, first off, let's talk about why a tripod in the first place. I think most people realize that a tripod is a key piece of camera gear. It's something that a lot of pro photographers will have strapped to their backpack or carry along with them on photo shoots. But why might you need to use it other than just trying to look like a pro photographer? We are trying to be practical out here, so do you need to bring it out there? Do you need to invest in one? If you do, what sort of tripod do you need?
Speaker 1:We're going to get into all those nitty gritty details throughout the course of this episode, but let me start off by saying when you use a tripod and really what it's all for, to boil it down, other than looking like a pro and maybe staking out your spot at a great viewpoint, which, honestly, it's very, very helpful for staking out your little triangle of area that you can keep your camera and and be waiting for that sunrise shot or waiting for that beautiful light. Really, the main reason you need it is when you are going to be shooting slow shutter photography now, if that term doesn't make sense to you, basically, what we're talking about is when you're leaving your shutter open for a very, very long time. Most oftentimes we're talking about night photography, or really early morning or late evening photography, when we're trying to capture as much light out of a very, very dark surrounding. So again, tripods, they have one really good use and it's for slow shutter photography. So let's cut to the chase.
Speaker 1:If you don't do any slow shutter photography or you don't think you're going to get into it, tripods, in my mind, are kind of cumbersome. Let's be honest. I'm going to give you tips and tricks throughout today that will help you find the tripods that are the least cumbersome ways to use it, that are the least annoying to use. But nevertheless, tripods are another piece of gear. They are something that you have to set up. You have to extend the legs, you have to find the position and more often than not, when I'm photographing wildlife, because I know I'm at a very, very fast shutter, I'm not worrying about a tripod because that's going to slow me down If I'm moving from one side of the vehicle to the next to photograph lions in Africa or polar bears in Canada.
Speaker 1:I do tend to be handheld. However, for lots of my night photography I should say for all of my night photography I've got a tripod underneath my camera. So it is still a very indispensable piece of gear. It's just not with me all the time, it's not underneath my camera all the time, but when I do need it it's huge. You can't take the photo without it. You can't photograph northern lights, you can't photograph stars, you can't photograph beautiful sunrises. There's a lot you can't photograph if you don't have a slow shutter, and a slow shutter means you really need a tripod. So that's just kind of getting the cat out of the bag, telling you first and foremost right off the bat why you need it when you need it. There are definitely times you need it. Heck. If you're doing any sort of videography, like I'm doing right now on my YouTube channel, you definitely need a tripod.
Speaker 1:Now, another time you might want to use a tripod. It's not something that I personally use, because I don't have a super big telephoto lens that I cannot handhold. I tend to carry lenses with me that are packable, more lightweight. These are your zoom telephoto lenses. But another time that a lot of people tell me they love their tripod or monopod which we're going to get to in a little bit is when they're lugging around a big, heavy lens and they want to rest it for a minute. They want to have it on that tripod, so when they may be using a second camera or maybe looking around or hiking around, they can at least have a sturdy, stable tripod that that big camera and or that big lens sits on and you know caveat that is also a really great time to use it as well.
Speaker 1:But nevertheless, let's get into today's episode, where we dig into all the different nuances of what makes a tripod a great tripod and what considerations you might have to make when picking the tripod from your existing ones or perhaps going out and buying a new tripod, something that I think that all aspiring photographers should at least invest in at some point in their career. Okay, so the first thing I'm going to talk about is the difference between cheap tripods and expensive tripods, and it's not a number value per se, although usually in and around $100 and higher you're getting into pretty good tripods, but generally cheap tripods the ones you might get from a big box store, the one that might have even come free with your camera one thing you're going to notice is that they tend to be one complete unit. They don't have a separate set of legs and a tripod head. When we get into the better tripods the ones that I'm definitely going to recommend is investing in a good, solid, quote unquote more expensive tripod you're going to notice that there are really two components. You have the tripod legs, which most people think is the tripod itself, but then the tripod head itself. What is that part that connects the legs, the stabilization themselves, to your camera, and you might be surprised to learn that there are a lot of different ways you can do it. So I highly recommend putting some pretty deep consideration into not just the legs but also the tripod head.
Speaker 1:But before you get lost in all that, let's talk about the tripod legs first. If you're going to go out and buy a bigger, fancier tripod, you're probably going to be shopping to buy both individually, or you can buy a kit that has a stock or a kit head on it, but you'll also likely find that you get different choices. The same legs, the same material whether it's aluminum or carbon fiber or something else will come with several different types of heads you can choose from. So let's dive into what makes that different as well. But again, first the legs we want to talk about. So the legs are, of course, the meat and potatoes of your tripod. This is the thing that creates the stabilization. This is also the thing that you're going to have to fuddle with and I really emphasize the word fuddle, as non-scientific as that might sound or be.
Speaker 1:The tripod legs and how they extend the clasps are really, really important, because oftentimes, when we're out in the field, when we're using a tripod, we're moving around, even though the basic gist of having a tripod is to be still and stay in one place. That's not my style. I'm still moving around, I'm still changing angles, I'm still going higher or lower, and so using tripod legs, as silly as it sounds, is one of the most important parts of selecting, slash buying your next tripod, and there are kind of two main categories they fall into in terms of the mechanism of using your tripod and your tripod legs. The first is going to be a very straightforward kind of clip system. You unclip the leg and it extends. You clip it and it locks. The other same general process or idea of extending the legs, but it's going to be a twist. So you have some tripods that are more of a twist system and some that are clamp.
Speaker 1:Great tripods come in both varieties. So it's really up to you as to which you think is going to be easier. For instance, sometimes when I have big, heavy mitts or gloves on I'm photographing the Arctic for the Aurora Borealis I find that the clip or the clamp tripod is a lot better. So I'm not having to twist, I'm not having to feel how tight it is through my layers and layers of mittens and glove liners and all that. So I might like that clamp or clip system better, sometimes for really quick and easy deployment. Let's say my tripod is in my backpack and I just want to take it out really quickly.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, depending on your preferences and what you think works better for your style, you might prefer the twist system. What I generally find this is my first recommendation of the podcast is I do recommend the clip or the clamp system. I'm using those two words interchangeably here, mainly because they have less room for failure or error. I can't tell you how many times I've been photographing with a photo group. It might be in the Arctic, where conditions are harsh and we're trying to speed through things, or we just happen to see something on an early morning drive on the side of the road that really warrants a tripod and we start using those twist legs and what might happen is those legs will actually fall out of their socket because you've untwisted it too much. Sometimes, when you twist them to get them tight, it ends up being like a jar of pickles and you can't undo it. This might be because you're in the heat of the day and it turns into night, or vice versa, and that the metal of your tripod actually expands a little bit so that twist system binds up. So I personally generally don't like those. I'm not going to go as far as to say steer clear of them per se, but the main thing to know is that there are two different types of systems and I generally prefer the clamp system. I think that they are a little bit easier to use and, frankly, just in my own tripod research, especially in prepping for this episode, I found there are a lot more tripods, especially in the nicer end systems, that are clamp oriented.
Speaker 1:The next thing we want to talk about when talking about the tripod legs themselves is going to be the material that they're made out of, and you might be imagining that the more money you spend, the lighter and the sturdier the tripod becomes. That's absolutely a truism. That's a thing. If you can spend a couple hundred dollars more, you're going to upgrade from aluminum to carbon fiber. If you can spend a little bit more, you're going to upgrade from aluminum to carbon fiber. If you can spend a little bit more, those legs might retract a little bit shorter, so you have shorter segments. That makes it a little bit more portable. Ultimately, what I recommend is going with a tripod that fits your budget, getting into a really good tripod brand like Manfrotto, peak Design, gitzo Really Right Stuff. Those are some of my top brands that I personally use or have used over the years, starting with a good brand and getting what your budget can afford.
Speaker 1:But, as many of you are probably travel photographers or wildlife and nature photographers that are constantly on the go out there, even if it's just going to your own backyard or your city park or somewhere nearby. Having it be portable is a really, really key, key thing. So sometimes, when you are shopping online for tripods, you might not get a sense of how long those legs are, or you might not be aware to look for how many segments the legs come in. And the point being is that you might see a tripod online and you say, oh, this has only got two clips or two clamps to extend. That's easier than four. Well, what that translates into is it packs down into a larger size, so it's something that might take up the entire length of your large duffel bag. It might be something that barely fits in your backpack. It might be something that is really really hard to strap to a backpack or to a pack. So I do tend to look for those tripods, when completely collapsed, that are on the smaller side. It does mean that when I want to deploy it and extend those legs, I have more clamps and more segments to pull out, but the really key thing is that I can bring it more places because it is smaller when it packs down.
Speaker 1:Now I alluded to the idea of materials, and this is a really, really key thing too. So a lot of the sort of basic or introductory tripods out there are going to be more of aluminum or some sort of inexpensive aluminum alloy, some combination. It's kind of like wine. It might not be a single varietal, it might be a mixture of metals and we just don't know what it is. As we're getting more into the higher end tripods in the $300 range, the $400 range, we're starting to see that it's pure aluminum. It's lighter weight, it is going to be a little bit sturdier until we get into the upper end range, which is going to be, voila, the piece de resistance, carbon fiber tripods, and these do make a big difference. We're talking about relatively expensive compared to some of the big box store $30 tripods, but in the $400, $500, $600 range, all of a sudden you're getting the smallest, lightest and most durable tripods out there.
Speaker 1:Yes, carbon fiber. When you're looking for like a bicycle frame or things like that, we may have heard over the years that they can dent, they can break, they can tear, they can actually rip because it is carbon fiber. But I have not found that to be the case whatsoever with my tripods. I'm not using them like a bicycle, I'm not going over bumps in the road. My carbon fiber tripods that have had for many, many years are not only lighter and smaller, but they're also really, really sturdy. And there's the added benefit that carbon fiber actually absorbs movement from the ground or from any sort of camera shake a little bit better. I'm not going to say that that's the sole or the most important reason to go for carbon fiber. The number one reason is really for it to be lightweight, but I do find they're incredibly durable and I do have that added peace of mind that maybe just a little bit of movement from a slight breeze going by that carbon fiber is going to just flex and bend minutely to buffer camera movement just ever so slightly more.
Speaker 1:So let's move on to the other big half of what makes up a good tripod. There's this little unit on top that is the tripod head. Now this attaches to the legs with just a screw on top. It's either a three quarter inch or a half inch, but nevertheless it is something that is almost universally interchangeable. In fact, if you get the wrong size, very often your tripod legs the main unit of your tripod will come with a little threaded adapter. So if you have a half inch screw. You can turn it into a three quarter inch screw or vice versa.
Speaker 1:But the tripod head I personally view as just as important as tripod legs. It is going to be the thing you come into contact with most in terms of altering your shots, changing your angle, moving your tripod from place to place. It's the thing that you're going to be adjusting pretty much just before you take the shot, just before you press that shutter button. I'm adjusting my tripod head for levelness or to change it from a landscape orientation to a portrait orientation. So I'm constantly adjusting my tripod head, which, as you can imagine, means that you want a really easy to adjust tripod head.
Speaker 1:Now I have my favorites, but I'm going to start by going through all the various options out there for photographers. We're going to start with one that's kind of the classic tripod head. That usually is the stock or the kit tripod head, if you're just buying some sort of combo kit. And this is the classic ball head and it works very much like a ball and socket. It is essentially going to be a ball that fits into a clamp and you can tighten and loosen it. You can tighten one side and it stays in plane. You can pan left and right, and then there's another knob, usually that allows you to swivel it in any which way, shape or form, in any direction, and that gives you full range of motion across this more or less globe, uh, spheric axis. So the ball head is great. Um, it is the standard. It's probably the most minimalist, it's the lightest weight, it's the most versatile and it's really really great for photographers. Um, I do think that there are some better options out there, but in general, the ball head. You can't really go wrong. It's just whether you have a specific purpose or style that I'm about to talk about next.
Speaker 1:So, making a slight aside, we're going to get in the realm of the pan tilt heads. Now. These are the ones, ironically, that you're going to see in some of the less expensive tripod models, even though designed high quality heads of the pan tilt variety are usually a little bit more expensive. This is something you're probably gonna be familiar with, seeing. It might be the tripod that your parents had growing up.
Speaker 1:It's got the two sort of. They look like screwdrivers that are bolted into the tripod head and each one controls a certain axis up or down, or left or right. Now, these are fine, but now, all of a sudden, you have two working parts. So instead of just loosening one knob and getting a full range of motion, full 360 axis, now you have two different knobs that you're twisting and turning, that do two different things. It's a little bit complicated. Now, where these things really stand out and where they really really help is actually with videography, because what you can do is you can set one plane to be completely rigid and you can actually pan or tilt your camera lenses. This is great for videography when you need to pan a moving animal across a field or you might want to create some sort of dramatic effect of tilting your camera up to sort of unveil the top of a tree, starting at the trunk and slowly panning up to the branches.
Speaker 1:Again, this is more of the videography world, so I'm not going to hamper on it too too much, but sometimes you might see this when looking for a tripod. Sometimes you might have this at home already and you wonder, well, why doesn't Cort love this? Well, it's because it's just, it's a couple extra pieces you don't need and it takes a lot more time to adjust it perfectly, not to mention these two large screwdrivers that essentially screw in and dictate the hold and the loosening aspect of it. They stick out. There's more weight, it's harder to carry. It's another thing you have to break down when moving from location to location. I'm just not a big fan unless I'm doing a lot of videography.
Speaker 1:Now, the third way is something that's relatively niche and I only know one camera manufacturer currently making this, although there could certainly be more. Please feel free to leave a comment either here in the podcast or on my YouTube channel, if you found another brand, but it's Manfrotto, and they have what's known as a pistol grip ball head. This is really my favorite tripod head and I'll tell you why. What it does is it combines the brilliance of the ball head where you can really easily loosen and tighten and get any sort of direction. You're not confounded by two or three different axes. However, as you pull that trigger, it actually loosens the ball head and as you let go of the trigger, it snaps it back into place. So the reason I love this so much is that oftentimes, when I am photographing with slow shutters, it's at night or it's in really cold conditions like the Arctic, and to be able to use my ball head one-handed to actually move my camera around this swivel around this ball and socket is extraordinary, contrast that with the standard ball head and one hand has to be on your camera so it doesn't flop over and the other hand has to be on the dial to loosen and tighten it into place. So the pistol grip ball head is really extraordinary. Again, manfrotto makes it. You can adapt that to any tripod legs that you have. Again, these things are universally threaded and it's really a next level for your photography. I think by using it one-handed it speeds things up. It gives me more confidence and assurity that my camera's not going to flop over. Really, really nice.
Speaker 1:So next up, let's talk about tripod plates and mounts. This is the last little bit of connection. We're talking about truly a thin little plate between your tripod head and your camera itself. This is the thing that you essentially bolt to the bottom of your camera and this is what usually works as some sort of quick release to your tripod head itself. And I'm not going to go into all the different makes and models because there are a lot of really proprietary plates out there. However, there is one universal plate that is essentially adopted by all tripod heads and it's the Arca mount A-R-C-A, and this has a very, very specific size and dimension that just about any tripod head will take. And this is really nice because you can just have one plate screwed to the bottom of your tripod and whether you're using two different tripods or you have a travel tripod, you have a bigger tripod, you have a smaller tripod like a GorillaPod that you might be taking with you on a hike, versus a bigger one you're leaving back with you at camp or in the hotel. Having just one plate so you don't have to use a tool to undo that plate for your camera is really really great. And again, the ARCA size A-R-C-A tripod plate is kind of, I would say, the industry standard at this point. There are other plates and different tripod manufacturers will likely have their own plates that do adapt to some sort of quick release system and those things are really really nice. But if you find yourself using various different stabilization devices or you find yourself using a small travel tripod during the day or like a GorillaPod for hikes, whereas you leave your bigger tripod at base camp, it's really nice to have that standard plate so you don't have to constantly be switching back and forth.
Speaker 1:So I just mentioned travel tripods for one of the first times in the podcast and this is a little bit of a tangent but kind of a word of warning is that if you go online or even to your local camera store, you might see some really small tripods that are, you know, over $100. So you know you're getting something quality. They're made of pure aluminum or in some cases even carbon fiber, but they're really small, they pack down, but they can be extended up to three and four feet. I'm just going to give you a little word of caution about these, because I've had some bad experiences over the years where they're's a little bit too feeble, a little bit too frail, not sturdy enough. Remember, your primary function of your tripod is to be the rock, the metaphorical rock, of your camera. So when you start getting these small travel tripods, yes, it's really great because it fits in like the little water bottle holder, your backpack, and it's lightweight and it takes up less room. But just be aware that there's a. If you get these small travel tripods, they are going to be inherently less sturdy.
Speaker 1:In addition, I've found that some of the corners they cut in making them lighter weight and making them smaller, some of the clasps or some of the ring tightening features of the legs themselves aren't really up to snuff. They work in a different way and they sometimes can fail in the field. I've seen this happen before. We have a beautiful Aurora show in front of us and it kind of erupts out of nowhere and we're scrambling, we're getting tripods ready and I'll grab someone's small lightweight travel tripod and begin setting it up with them and the legs kind of feel like toothpicks in a way. They're obviously bigger than toothpicks but they just feel so unstable and boom, all of a sudden that clasp just doesn't work right and the leg completely falls out Because again, again, they're short, cutting some things such that they are saving weight, saving size, maybe saving on materials to be that small, lightweight travel tripod that when you need it most it might not work the way you think it does. So I do recommend getting one tripod for really all cases. Get something sturdy, get something that is travel related, but not the really, really, really tiny, small, inexpensive travel tripods that collapse small, extend big but ultimately could fail you when you need it most.
Speaker 1:Next up, let's get into a little bit of the other stabilization category. So I'm going to move swiftly over to pretty much the other big category that a lot of photographers use and that is going to be your monopod. So a monopod, as you can imagine from the name, instead of tripod, is just one post instead of three. So the obvious thing is that this is not going to be super duper stable. It's not going to stand up on its own. It's something that you're going to have to hold while you're taking the photos. So while it's not going to work really great or work at all for slow shutter photography or especially night photography, star photography, aurora photography, it is going to be a nice stabilization device.
Speaker 1:What I've heard before is that a monopod removes about one stop of stabilization, meaning that if you needed to shoot something at 1, 40th of a second, let's say, you could actually put that on a monopod instead of being handheld and shoot the same shot with the same stabilization at 1, 20th of a second. But generally I don't use monopods unless I'm carrying a really big, heavy lens. And this is where that little thing I mentioned at the beginning of how some photographers really like a tripod in order to set their big lens on or help carry their big lens or help position their big lens. Monopods do brilliantly for that. They are significantly less intrusive, significantly less cumbersome, less bothersome than a full tripod. So if you're, let's say, photographing grizzly bears on the shores of Alaska and you're sitting on a little stool and you're just kind of waiting for the bears to come by all day, having a monopod on you is really great because you can have your camera on it and not need to bear the full weight of your camera and lens and any other accessories on it that entire time. It allows it to be touching the ground, stabilized by the ground itself. Again, a monopod is just one leg of a tripod so it can very easily readily sway back and forth because there's only one point of contact. So it will swivel against the ground. But as long as you're okay touching your camera, being in contact with your camera while using a monopod, they can take some weight off and they can also help stabilize a little of your hand movement, which is always a thing in photography.
Speaker 1:There's another category of tripods that is essentially a tripod, but it's known. I guess it's the brand name. It's kind of like Kleenex, but it's called Platipod and I'm sure there are other manufacturers out there, certainly by now. But essentially what it is is it's a tripod in the sense that it has a head to it, it has an attachment point, but instead of legs it's just a flat metal panel like the size of a small reading book, and these things are really, really darn cool. I have to admit I have not picked one up yet because it's just, frankly, one more piece of gear that I don't want to bring in the field, but they're really really cool.
Speaker 1:If you're doing a lot of ground level photography, it's essentially a tripod that starts at ground level. So I think at some point in my career I'm going to pick one of these up, especially if I'm photographing big wildlife and I want to be as close to the ground as possible, which, let's be honest, it makes amazing photos if you can be on eye level or on ground level with things like bears or lions, etc, etc. And, believe it or not, there are a lot of cases when you can do that out in the field. It's not like you're putting yourself in danger. There are indeed cases for it. Not like you're putting yourself in danger. There are indeed cases for it. But just keep in mind another category of stabilization in this tripod monopod category is known as a platypod. You can attach your camera to it and you can safely put it on the ground. So you get that nice stabilization effect when you do need to be only inches above the ground.
Speaker 1:The final category I'm going to talk about here is kind of like a travel tripod, but without all the fuss and I do love my GorillaPod, I'm just going to call it your GorillaPod category. There are other manufacturers, but they sort of invented this category. They invented this tripod, and it is a small tripod, usually somewhere between eight and 12 inches, let's say, and it has flexible legs. Now, I think the original intention was to try to be clever and have these swiveling sort of clampy like legs such that you could wrap each one of these three legs around a sign post or a fence post. But really, what I've found it to be useful for is just a small travel tripod that gets me close to the ground, that doesn't have the same woes as other small travel tripods, meaning like the legs popping out of socket or being too flimsy. These things are actually really really stable. In addition, they're incredibly lightweight and you can put any tripod head on top of it.
Speaker 1:So GorillaPods are really really useful for those that just know they don't want to bring a tripod, but you might have a little case. You might have one or two shots of the day where you need a tripod, and those might be the shots of your day. An instance that comes to mind is hiking in Zion National Park. There are a lot of beautiful rivers. Well, there's one main beautiful river in Zion National Park, the Virgin River, and there's this great hike called the Narrows, and I might not want to bring a full tripod each and every day I go into the Narrows, but I might want to have something that allows me to take some slow shutter photography of moving water, and a GorillaPod is so lightweight I'd be silly not to bring it with me. In addition, if you need it to clamp around a post, to do a little family photo action, these again, these legs, are designed to have little swivels around them such that you can manually clamp them around any sort of object and they hold lock tight.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm going to finish up this episode with a little bit of a dive into the various tripod brands that I have come to know and love throughout the years, and I'm going to give you some pretty specific recommendations here and, right up front, I'm going to tell you my favorite tripod right now. I do call it a travel tripod because it's super lightweight. It's super small. It almost is the size of like the inner tube of a paper towel, like it's incredibly small. It is the Peak Design carbon fiber travel tripod, and don't let that travel tripod designation fool you. This thing is really really sturdy and really really easy to use. Now you pay a somewhat pretty penny for it I think they're retailing for about $600 now but I can tell you it's probably the one tripod you'll never have to purchase ever again.
Speaker 1:It does it all. It goes up to gosh, I don't know over five feet in height. It gets all the way to the ground. The legs will swivel out very easily. It's super portable and lightweight, like the GorillaPod, and it actually comes with its own ball head on it. So it's one unit you don't have to fuss with. You don't have to add weight in terms of you know figuring out how much the legs weigh and how much the tripod weigh If you're carrying it in your pack or if you're flying on small planes and you have weight limits.
Speaker 1:This Peak Design Carbon Fiber Travel Tripod is. It's the best. So if you want to just stop the episode now and pick that up. It's a really really good tripod. The folks over there are engineers first and foremost, photographers a strong second. But they just have engineered this thing to perfection and it takes that ARCA type plate. So it's the same universal plate that you can use for other tripods or even other peak design gear like the little camera clip system. It's a really nice tripod.
Speaker 1:The one I had been using before that and I still have it in fact I'm filming this episode on it right now is going to be my Manfrotto carbon fiber tripod. So notice, I do have two different carbon fiber tripods. It's because that's how much I believe in carbon fiber for being the best out there, and when you're a professional in this space, you really do need to look and source and invest in the best. So Manfrotto is a great, great brand. You might get a little bit overwhelmed if you start searching on Amazon or B&H Photo for Manfrotto tripods because there are a lot of different shapes and styles.
Speaker 1:Now these tripodsods again have a removable tripod head. You can get the pistol grip, you can get the ball head, you can get those pan tilt heads and you can get a variety of different tripod legs. You don't have to go for carbon fiber. They have those that are aluminum. They have those that are some sort of combination of metals that are a little bit heavier but will come in at a lower price point. They have some where there's only two leg segments. So they stand at about you know two feet when you're packing them in a suitcase, but they quickly, with very, very little work, extend to four feet with just one or two clips. So it's a really nice thing to have that variety, but it is a little bit overwhelming. So again, go back to my lessons. Before think of how many segments. Start looking at the extended size, the collapsed size, the weight of the legs and the weight of the tripod head itself, if you're really trying to get into the nitty-gritty of those dimensions and that weight.
Speaker 1:I'd be remiss if I didn't mention two other key tripod brands. These are Gitzo, g-i-t-z-o and then Really Right Stuff. Really Right Stuff, in my opinion over the years, is kind of the top pro photographer's choice. I have never owned one personally, so I can't give you honest feedback of me using it, but they are the most sturdy, that's for sure. They're a little bit heavier, they're a little bit bigger, but they are high-level pro photography tripods. So if you find yourself doing a lot of night photography, if you find yourself doing a lot of astrophotography or just want a really good, sturdy tripod, maybe you have a bigger camera, let's say, you use one of those bazooka big prime lenses and you need something that is ultra sturdy. I've seen some really, really great tripods from Really Right Stuff over the years and yes, it is three words Really Right Stuff is the name of the tripod brand.
Speaker 1:So today's listener question comes in. It's a really really good, appropriate one, and it's actually one that I've done a full episode on. But I'm going to give you a little bit of snippet. I'm going to give you kind of the be all end all explanation of how to do this technique. But the question is how do you take silky water photos? And the great thing is, the first thing I do is I grab my tripod. That's an absolutely key thing, because when we're taking silky water photos I'll explain what that means in a second we have to have slow shutters. Okay, let me repeat that we have to have slow shutters and therefore we have to have a tripod.
Speaker 1:So what is silky water photography? Well, essentially, what it's doing is a slow shutter of moving water, and the reason I call it silky water is because when you take the photo, at a tenth of a second or one full second, you can see the movement of the water. The movement of the white water almost creates these streaks, this silky like effect in your camera, and it's absolutely stunning. So I want to tell you how to do it. There are some key ingredients. Obviously, you need stabilization, so you need a tripod.
Speaker 1:You need to find some moving water, and it's not just any moving water. You need to find some moving white water. The more aeration in the water, the different colors really, just the streaking in the photo comes from the white water itself. So whitewater rapids, waterfalls, babbling creeks that are flowing over rocks, where you actually have that sort of aeration. When the water flows over the rock, it creates a little bit of turbidity and it makes that flowing motion. That's what you're looking for. You're also looking for some stable aspects to the photo. So it's not good enough just to find moving water. You really need to juxtapose that movement with something rock, solid and still. Otherwise it's going to look like an abstract painting. Rocks work, a tree works, the entire landscape works. You're going to be hard pressed to find a scene that doesn't have something stable in it, but generally I'm not taking a slow shutter silky water photo zoomed in on the Colorado River right in the middle of rapids.
Speaker 1:That's not what I'm going for. I'm trying to find something that is static, something that is like a rock, a rock wall, a tree, and I'm making sure that that's tack sharp so that when you compare the sharpness of that with movement of the water, the movement of the water takes on this beautiful, beautiful, artistic silky look. So essentially, what I'm doing is I'm putting my camera on full manual mode with auto ISO. That's actually the setting that I shoot on all the time for all my photos, because I want to control the aperture, I want to control the shutter speed, but I don't really care what the ISO is and because we're shooting a slow shutter, this is going to let in a lot of light, so I'm going to get a low ISO anyway. In fact, I might have to adjust if my ISO is too low, and I'll tell you how to do that in a second, but I'm starting with something moderate like f5.6, f8, and one tenth of a second.
Speaker 1:Okay, the main thing that's going to change here is going to be my shutter speed. So very often what I'm doing is I'm going a little bit faster and a little bit slower. I'm sort of like broadening my reach out away in both directions from one tenth of a second. So my next photo might be one fifth of a second. My next photo might be one second and then two full seconds. Okay, then I'm going to go the other direction to take, you know, back to one tenth of a second. I'm gonna go to one 20th and one 40th of a second. This is going to give me very, very different looks for every photo.
Speaker 1:I can't tell you the exact shutter speed you should shoot your moving water photos on, because it's entirely dependent on the speed and the flow of the water. In addition, it's entirely dependent on the look you're trying to get. You might want just a little bit of blur from the water, just to show a little bit of movement. That's something more like 1, 20th, 1 40th of a second. However, if you're filming a raging waterfall in Costa Rica, 1 20th of a second might still have a lot of blur in it because a lot of water moves through your frame in that split second. But again, I'm usually shooting somewhere in the range of 4 seconds to 1 40th of a second. That's 1 over 4, 0. Something in that range is going to give me my sweet spot, where I'm looking for that silky water each and every time.
Speaker 1:One other pro tip I'm going to tell you about silky water as well as all tripod photography is a really clever and easy way to reduce any sort of movement in your camera. So obviously, the tripod is taking out most of the movement, but if you've ever noticed, as you press that button, your camera may move ever so slightly, that's not what you want, especially if you're shooting at a slow shutter speed, like we're talking about today. So a really easy hack, without having to buy another piece of gear, is to set your camera on a two second delay. What this does is when you press that shutter, it waits two seconds to take the photo. That is ample time for your camera to settle down and not be moving anymore from you pressing that shutter button. So that's something that I find myself using for just about all tripod photography.
Speaker 1:All right, folks, that is our deep dive into tripods and other stabilization we talked about a lot today. If you have specific questions, I sincerely invite you to head on over to my YouTube channel, leave a comment on this video or any video, ask that question and I will get back to you. I love talking to folks about camera gear and camera tips, as you can tell from me doing this podcast, so don't be shy, let me know what I can help out with and until next time, happy shooting.