Tallyn's Professional Photographic Presents
"Choosing The Right Tripod"

By Craig S. Fager
Tallyn's E-Commerce

Tripods are necessity for nature shots or macro-photography where you want your image to be as free of camera shake as possible, but they’re certainly not exclusive to those scenarios. They’re also good for long exposure shots, slow shutter speeds, telephoto lenses or low light situations. Even with relying on a high shutter speed, you wont have as crisp of a shot without a tripod. With so many tripods and heads to choose from, how is anyone supposed to find the right one for their needs? The best plan of action is to identify exactly what your needs are:

How heavy of a load with the tripod need to support? Will it be used for a compact D-SLR with a small 50mm lens, or do you have a bracket system with an off-camera flash, Wi-Fi transmitter, 70-200mm lens and a battery pack? Clearly the more equipment you intend on loading up your tripod with, the sturdier and heavier the tripod itself needs to be.

How tall does it need to be at full extension, and how heavy must it be? Most people are looking for a tripod that will bring the camera right up to eye level – If you’re 5’6”, do you really need a tripod that extends to 7’? If you are going to be carrying the tripod across distances from shoot to shoot, it might be safe to assume that a lighter tripod will suit your needs. But remember, if your tripod is too light, the center of gravity will be too high and your equipment may not be stable.

How precise does the tripod head need to be? Modern tripod heads come in two varieties: There are pan-and-tilt heads and there are ball-and-socket heads. Pan/Tilt heads are generally used by shooters who need to have each axis of movement segregated to an individual handle, for architectural work, or ultra close-ups. This is slower to operate, but facilitates fine tuning your composition precise results.

Ball heads are generally used by shooters who need to work fast. They usually only have one or two adjustment knobs. One controls the left to right panning, and the other controls the entire ball for your angle, tilt, and overall direction. Precision is more difficult to achieve with a ball head, because once you loosen it to move in one direction you have opened yourself up to movement in all three axes.

322RC2 Grip-Action

488RC2 Two-Way Control

808RC4 Three-Axis Control

What other features are important? Many tripods feature their own unique bells-and-whistles. The Bogen/Manfrotto Neotec 458B tripod features a rapid opening and closing mechanism allowing you to simply pull each leg downwards to open and automatically lock it in any position, with no screws, knobs or levers to tighten or loosen. The 475 Geared Tripod features a geared center column for up-and-down precision and a center bracing system for level setup and extra support. The 055MF3 is constructed with carbon fiber to reduce weight while increasing durability without losing strength.

Choosing a tripod may seem a daunting task, but with a careful examination of your needs, The Pros At Tallyn's are dedicated to helping you find the perfect piece of equipment for your unique situation.

Click Here for a complete listing of all the products featured in this article.

Be sure to Bookmark Tallyns.com,
or sign up for our E-Flash Newsletter to be informed of articles and videos added to our Web School
as well as special web-only sales!