[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I'll give you that. In street photography a tripod is a hinderance but in
> most situations, I maintain that a tripod is vital to good photographs.
"Vital" or "useful". To "good" photographs or to "technically perfect"
photographs or to "the best" photographs? "Most situations" meaning
most types of situations on a list of situations, or the situations
in which most photographs are taken?
You have a very good point about the benefits of tripods, but I think
you may be both overstating the case and failing to account for how
many different approaches to photography there are.
> With
> the exception of a few cases, photographers who argue otherwise are lazy or
> are willing to accept fuzzy pictures.
_Sometimes_ I'm willing to accept pictures that are less than _ideally_
sharp, if they're sharp enough for the size I'll print them. Sure, I'd
rather have them sharper, but sometmes I use a zoom instead of a prime
anyhow, or use my cheap 400/6.8 lens, or use a teleconverter, or don't
bother to add a tripod to the three bodies and bag of lenses I'm carrying
around all afternoon. Sometimes it's laziness (and I'll admit that!)
and sometimes it's practicality. If I'm carrying my camera "just in case
a photographic subject jumps in front of me while I'm running errands",
the camera is there to get the picture that I wouldn't have gotten
if I didn't carry a camera that day. A "sharp enough but not as sharp
as technically possible" image is better than not getting the image at
all. (There are exceptions -- I've seen things that were only worth
shooting if I had the time and the right lens to do them properly, and
passed them by. But there are plenty of images that are worthwhile
_pictures_ even if imperfect.) The same reasoning also leads me to
use Fuji Super HG 1600 or Konica SR-G sometimes.
Then again, most of what I've just described counts as either street
photography or event photography. But gee, that's an awfull lot of
photography.
But what about "petraits"? Sure, I could put the camera on a tripod,
manipulate the cat into a classic pose, and squeeze the bulb on my
air release, but the reason people want _me_ to photograph their animals
is that I catch the critters expressing _their_personality_, and
the way I shoot cats is a bit difficult with a tripod. (Though I will
put a _flash_ on a tripod with a long cable or an optical slave.)
Even humans -- if someone comes to me for a formal sitting, well
first of all I'm not equipped for that really (yet), but yeah,
that'd be the time to put the camera on a tripod and carefully
think through the shot, the pose, the angle, the lighting, and
make the portrait as technically perfect as I can while also making
it art. But when it's a spur-of-the-moment thing, I've got to
get the job done before my subject gets _bored_, and I'm going
to move around, camera in hand, and shoot when I find the view
I want. _Can_ that be done with a tripod? Yes. I'm probably
not going to do it quickly with a tripod just yet (though I should
practice). Of course, the tripod may still be in the car, a long
walk away, when the moment happens.
For the flower shots I've been doing in my back yard this Spring
and Summer, I use a camera support (usually a tripod) for most
of the shots. Sometimes I can't get the tripod where I'd need
it to be, but usually there's a tripod involved..
This afternoon I was photographing a cat that I surprised in my
yard -- it ran next door and watched me suspiciously. With the
geometry of the fence I was shooting around the end of, and my
back porch, there was physically no way to set up a tripod. The
cat stayed put long enough that I would have had time to set one
up, but not long enough for me to get out wood, drill, and saw,
and fabricate a custom bracket to hang the camera out off my
porch railing. And that's what it would have taken to make that
shot with a camera support.
What about birds and other wildlife? Sometimes there'll be
time to adjust a tripod. Other times it counts as action
photography. Come to think of it, what about sports? I've
seen monopods on the sidelines, but I don't recall having
seen a tripod there. Am I misremembering?
Landscapes? I should use a tripod. Sometimes I do. Sometimes
I get lazy. Sometimes I look at the meter and realize I'm
going to be shooting 1/2000 with a 35mm lens and figure I can
probably handhold that safely. (Yes, that may also indicate
that I happen to have a faster film loaded than would be
optimal. It happens.)
I don't see myself using a tripod if I'm shooting from a ladder.
*shrug*
Still-life? I should use a tripod -- after all, I've methodically
composed and arranged stuff, so why get lazy on the last step?
Fire or accident scene? Hand-held. Macro? Hah. When I get
my hands on one of those fine-adjustment rail thingies, sure.
Until then, I've got other tricks that get the job done. Maybe
not quite as _well_, but as good as I'm going to get _for_now_.
I'd rather _get_the_shot_.
Am I lazy? *Sometimes*, and I admit it. But am I lazy every time
I decide not to use a tripod for non-street-photography? Is the
tripod _necessary_ for every non-street-photography situation?
Are my standards _really_ too low if I shoot a mountain at 1/2000
without a tripod? (Or are my standards too low because I shoot
a mountain on something smaller than 4x5 sheet film?) Or are your
standards snobbishly high because _your_ subjects and style are
such that a tripod does make sense for most of _your_ photos?
Some of my best photos were made using a tripod.
Some of my best photos were made on days when I really didn't
expect to be photographing anything and didn't even have a
tripod in the car.
The tripod is a tool. One of many. Sometimes you need a
torque wrench to get something tightened a precise amount,
and other times you just give it a good yank with an ordinary
spanner -- insisting that the torque on each and every nut
be measured precisely is as foolish as not bothering to use
the right tool where it matters is lazy.
If your point is that tripods are underused, you're probably
right. But you undermined your case by cartoonishly overstating
it.
-- Glenn
-
This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe,
go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to
visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
