In the early days of your photographic journey, chances are a tripod will be among the first few pieces of gear you acquire, simply because it's the next logical thing to purchase to elevate your photography. Whether you get it for free or pay for it, you'll soon realize it's cumbersome, bulky, heavy, and frustrating to lug around on every photo adventure. You may eventually abandon it or opt for one of those lightweight and small travel tripods to replace the bulkier one you have, hoping it will still be able to deliver. Unfortunately, you might soon realize that having a bad tripod is worse than not having one at all.
To fully understand why owning a bad tripod might be worse than not having one, we first need to know why we should own a tripod. A tripod, comprising both legs and a head, is an indispensable tool for photographers looking to produce sharp images with longer exposure, precision framing and alignment, and ultimately to ensure the highest level of image quality without compromising with high ISO. All in all, a tripod is even more essential when your camera's weight or form exceeds what you can comfortably hold and operate.
While using a tripod may be cumbersome and will never be as fast as handheld shooting, it does bring some valuable benefits. The act of slowing down alone is enough to encourage more thoughtful consideration in composition and forces photographers to craft better images, taking small details like lighting, composition, and depth of field into consideration. This will result in a higher rate of quality keepers rather than multiple mediocre variations.
Lastly, a tripod can also act as an extension of your creativity. When used correctly, it allows you to produce images that are not possible with handheld shooting. As I like to put it, you are just one solid tripod away from capturing those landscape images with silky smooth clouds and water. Be daring enough to challenge and explore the creative possibilities it brings to your photography.
Now, the ugly part: the pitfalls of having a subpar tripod. You may have at some point in your photography journey come across a budget-friendly tripod, thinking you have struck a good deal, only to discover later that the only thing worse than not having a tripod is having a bad one.
This is mainly because of the downfall of expectations in thinking about what you could achieve, only to be faced with the disappointment and frustration of a bad tripod. With no tripod, you may not attempt challenging shots that demand stability and longer exposure times. However, with a bad tripod, you might believe you've captured the perfect shot, only to realize later when viewing it on a larger screen that everything is disappointingly softer than expected, resulting in a discouraging experience that could potentially hinder your pursuit of a photographic journey.
I would have expected an article with "that' title to "point out" what constitutes a "bad" tripod VS a good one, with some examples.
Thanks for your suggestion. That’ll be my future article
You have a point, but you beat around the bush without telling us what we need to know. A tripod with the weight and rigidity to stabilize the camera.
Yes 100%. Aluminum tripod from decades ago will be the best for stability
The usual route is buying a couple Bad tripods before realizing it is less expensive to buy one Good tripod.
Agree! That’s the experimental process to discover what you want before investing
You can carry a light tripod but it has to have a hook to hold your gear bag. Hook the gear bag to the tripod to add weight. Try to ground the bag by letting it partially touch the ground to prevent the bag from swaying with the wind.
If you know you want to take long exposures, then haul out that heavy tripod. No pain, no gain.
I should also highlight a tripod includes its head. You may have a somewhat stable tripod but a weak head destabilized it all
So, what are the characteristics of a 'bad' tripod? It might be a good idea to actually point them out or list them.
For sure will do it in the next article. Specifically a bad tripod will be one that doesn’t serve you well and cannot help you to get the result you need.
What's more important, the tripod legs or the ballhead?
I would say both. But if you have to choose then a ballhead would be in priority. As the stability of the tripod legs can be somewhat compensated with hanging weights at the bottom of the center column. And as long as they’re all standing on 3 legs it should be good. Instead there’s no way you can compensate for a sagging and loose ballhead.
I would say legs. Not everybody likes ball heads. Sometimes pan and tilt works better. ;)