jwbryson1
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Tripods are common and used frequently in low light conditions or when long exposure times are needed. But with the VR technology on many of today's newer lenses, the use of tripods is often not necessary. So when Bryan Peterson posted a series of images on Facebook today showing the implosion of a building in daylight hours, and mentioned that he didn't use his tripod, I asked him why uses the tripod so often even when it seems unnecessary. His response follows. I thought it was interesting and so I share it with you here.
Jeff-In this instance I would have simply wished that the same composition could be seen in each of these images but the horizon line goes up and down because I am 'wobbly' so to speak in my stance. As far as all of those other times, a tripod by its nature, slows most of us down, and in this slowing down process, THOUGHT and VISION will often have an opportunity to 'suggest' the best possible composition, and thus eliminate the need to do any post-processing cropping, which often happens when one shoots from the 'hip'. I would NOT use a tripod for most sports, but rather a monopod and when shooting on the street, as long as I am at shutter speeds of a 1/125 second or faster, the tripod is not called upon either, assuming I am using my 24-85mm or 17-35mm, which is a fair assumption most of the time while working the 'streets'.
EDIT: He just added the following to his response:
Jeff-I didn't mean to hit send as I wanted to add one final thought-I am a huge van of slow shutter speeds and the motion effects that result (and to be clear, I am NOT speaking just about waterfalls-that's a given. Rather I am talking about moving traffic and moving people, even something like hands knitting, hands playing a piano, hands chopping vegetables, and of course things like star trails, the moonrise, calming the crashing surf, making 'ghosts', and of course making people disappear such as a two to four minute exposure at Grand Central Station in NY. I might add that a variable ND 2-8 stop is an essential part of my photographic life.
Jeff-In this instance I would have simply wished that the same composition could be seen in each of these images but the horizon line goes up and down because I am 'wobbly' so to speak in my stance. As far as all of those other times, a tripod by its nature, slows most of us down, and in this slowing down process, THOUGHT and VISION will often have an opportunity to 'suggest' the best possible composition, and thus eliminate the need to do any post-processing cropping, which often happens when one shoots from the 'hip'. I would NOT use a tripod for most sports, but rather a monopod and when shooting on the street, as long as I am at shutter speeds of a 1/125 second or faster, the tripod is not called upon either, assuming I am using my 24-85mm or 17-35mm, which is a fair assumption most of the time while working the 'streets'.
EDIT: He just added the following to his response:
Jeff-I didn't mean to hit send as I wanted to add one final thought-I am a huge van of slow shutter speeds and the motion effects that result (and to be clear, I am NOT speaking just about waterfalls-that's a given. Rather I am talking about moving traffic and moving people, even something like hands knitting, hands playing a piano, hands chopping vegetables, and of course things like star trails, the moonrise, calming the crashing surf, making 'ghosts', and of course making people disappear such as a two to four minute exposure at Grand Central Station in NY. I might add that a variable ND 2-8 stop is an essential part of my photographic life.
