A few weeks ago I got a small tripod so I could take pictures at Harry's level, and that seemed to work out. Ten inches off the ground provides a quite different and surprisingly interesting perspective from my six-foot vantage point.
Taking pictures on a tripod (I now own five) is not something I have done very often. I am normally walking around with Harry and shooting using a tripod is difficult for several reasons. First, it is the opposite of stealthy, and potential subjects, if humans, either stiffen up, becoming far too formal, or object to the whole idea. Dogs don't seem to mind, but they might mistake it for a fire hydrant. Secondly, my main tripod is a 1974 vintage Star-D, which was also sold then as a Leitz Tiltall (they are still available new), and it is aluminum (considered lightweight at the time) rather than carbon fiber. It's a beast. Except for the head's rubber camera pad and a few scratches that would probably polish out if I cared, it is as good as new. I bought it to use with a Cambo 4"x5" view camera, long since retired. Third, since Harry has his own ideas of when and where to move, taking the time to set up the tripod is impractical.
A twelve-inch tall tripod is something else again. I leave it attached to the camera, set it down, point at something, and press the shutter. After a bit of research and wasted bits, I figured out how to set the Nikon's bracketing controls and attempted some HDR.
These pictures were shot handheld using that bracketing/HDR technique, although I think that only the last was really helped by it. I had never tried this before, thinking there would be too much movement between the individual components to get a sharp image, but bits are free so I can experiment without risk, and these are more than sharp enough. I am certain there would be trouble with a telephoto lens. But except for Harry's doggie friend (70mm), these were shot at 20mm or 35mm at 6fps. I could hold those lenses still enough long enough to shoot five component shots, each separated by two stops. I combined them in Lightroom and did the final processing in Photoshop.
Now you got me wanting to try the bracketing on my camera, Andrew. I wrote out a list of everything my camera can do, and at one point I was trying things out everyday; but you know how busy things get. Thanks for the interesting read and samples. I appreciated both!
Hi Andrew, it's been a long whil since I attempted HDR but if my memory serves me well the only time you will see any great impact is on images that have a large dynamic range.
In this case the system uses detail from the stopped down exposure to preserve highlights where needed, and detail from a frame with positive compensation to maintain shadow detail. All images are blended accordingly to provide a wider dynamic range than any of the originals.
Image #2 has an HDR'ish appearance to me but perhaps shadow detail was captured and brought out by increasing the shadows.
Great to see you experimenting and pushing your knowledge further.