Thursday Tips: Selecting a Tripod

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Photography, Tips, tripod

I’ve written about tripods on this blog before, but only in the general sense of enumerating the basic advantages of using one. In this post, I’m going to discuss some of the considerations that you might want to keep in mind when choosing a particular tripod. I’m not going to recommend specific makes or models; there are literally hundreds of options available for purchase. Rather, I’ll focus on specific feature sets that are worth prioritizing.

The Prime Directive

Remember what the main, substantive point of a tripod is—stability. Therefore, it’s important to get a tripod that’s capable of supporting the heaviest head/camera/lens combination that you’ll want to place on top of it. Tripods are “rated” for certain payloads. In my experience, you don’t want to be anywhere near the listed weight support. So, if the tripod in question allegedly supports, say, 15 pounds, I wouldn’t want to put even 10 pounds on it. My general rule of thumb is to make sure that the tripod specifications claim a payload support at least double the total of the highest payload I plan to use with the tripod. Remember to include the weight of whatever head you plan to put on the tripod itself. (There are some tripods that come with a dedicated head, but I generally don’t recommend using these models as they have limited flexibility.)

Basic Function: Independent Leg Positioning

Unless you plan to use the tripod exclusively indoors, be certain that the tripod you purchase allows you to independently adjust each of the three legs. There are a good many low end tripods that don’t allow for this; avoid them like the plague if you plan to shoot outdoors on uneven ground.

Size & Weight

While it’s critical to be certain that the tripod supports your payload, depending on your planned usage the weight and size of the tripod itself may be an issue. For instance, if your focus is travel photography you’ll almost certainly want to keep the length and weight of the tripod as low as possible, for two principal reasons: the first is the importance of having something very light and easy to carry when you’re constantly on the move; the second is the rather strict limits on luggage put in place by many airlines. Not incidentally, many of the same considerations apply if you plan to do any overnight backpacking with your gear. In such circumstances, every pound (and inch) saved is important.

Materials

Also on the subject of size/weight, you’ll want to consider the materials that make up the tripod itself. Generally speaking, the choices are aluminum or carbon fiber. Both are quite sturdy when properly manufactured, but carbon fiber tripods are significantly lighter, all things being equal, than aluminum tripods. On the other hand—again, all other things equal—comparably designed aluminum models are almost always less expensive than their carbon fiber equivalents. Whether the extra money is worth the lower weight is something you’ll have to determine for yourself based on your budget and shooting proclivities.

Maximum Height

You’ll also want to be sure that the tripod you obtain is adequate in terms of extended height. Generally speaking, you want to be sure that the unit extends high enough for you to use it at its tallest point without extending the unit’s center column, assuming it has one. Doing so will ensure that you can utilize the tripod in relative comfort in the field. The part about the center column is critical. One of the biggest mistakes I see many less experienced photographers make when in the field is extending the center column on their tripods when they don’t have to do so. Doing so effectively turns your tripod into a monopod, which means that your rig is far less stable than is the case when the center column isn’t extended. Mark my words—do not extend the center column unless it’s absolutely necessary for you to do so to reach a certain height.

Minimum Height

As important as it is to be certain that your tripod extends high enough, it’s just as important that it can be set up as low as you need it to go. This is a particularly relevant consideration if you’re into macro photography and need to get close to ground level to photograph things like flowers, but it can come in very handy to get low for certain other purposes, including (but not limited to) wildlife and landscape photography. Some tripods can be set up considerably lower than others, so be sure to check the specifications on this.

Number of Leg Sections

Some tripod models are available in either three- or four-leg section units. The former are usually a little bit more stable (because the bottom leg section of a four is typically thinner and, thus, less sturdy, than a three), but the latter can typically be collapsed into a significantly smaller package. Again, you’ll have to weigh the pros and cons based on what’s most important to you.

Final Considerations

Ultimately, you want to get a tripod that you’ll actually utilize. I know of many photo enthusiasts who own multiple sets of tripod legs, with each model designed to fill a specific need. Many other people have only one unit, intended to cover a broad set of purposes. Regardless, if you’re not going to carry the tripod with you and actually use it in the field, it’s a bad investment. Think carefully about the circumstances in which you normally shoot and make your purchase accordingly, because—like the best camera—the best tripod is the one you’ll actually use.

Thursday Tips is written by Kerry Mark Leibowitz, a guest blogger on 1001 Scribbles, and appears every other Thursday. To read more of his thoughts on photography, please visit his blog: Lightscapes Nature Photography.

Thursday Tips: Image Organization

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image organization, lightroom, Photography, Tips

Let’s spend a bit of time talking about what is surely the most exciting photography-related topic in the universe—image organization. Okay, so it’s not exactly the most thrilling subject, but it is, undeniably, extremely important as anyone who’s tried to sort through thousands of files to find a particular photograph can attest.

Caveats

Before I plunge in, I want to make two, essentially unrelated, points. The first is that while I may touch upon issues of data back up in general, that’s not the point of this post. Backup is a topic worthy of a seminar of its own, so that’s a subject for another day…maybe. The second matter is to address the notion of an objectively “best way to organize” your images. Let me be clear about this—there is no such thing. The “best” system is one that makes sense to you and is one you will use as part of your personal workflow. I’ll spend some time talking about what I do, but don’t take it as gospel. Parts of it may work for you as well, and I’ll provide some details just to give you some points to consider but by no means do I think that my system, in whole, is necessarily the best (there’s that word again) option for anyone else, let alone everyone else. The key to putting together a process that serves your needs is to consider—honestly—how you think and work and adapt a specific set of procedures accordingly.

With that said…

The Sooner You Start, the Better

One thing that is almost universally true about this matter is that the longer you wait to get started the harder it’s going to be to establish a working system…and because of that, the longer you wait the more likely you are to put it off which will—you guessed it—make it even harder to get started. Rinse and repeat. It’s really quite a vicious circle.

So, my advice is to think hard about exactly how you want to implement your organizational system, but don’t think too long about it, because it becomes more difficult each time you click the shutter button.

Folder Structure

The basis for the entire enterprise is centered around the notion of how you go about structuring the folders that will hold your images. There are countless options available to you and the “best” one is really based on how you’re inclined to think about the images you take.

For instance, if you’re a photo generalist, you might—might—want to start by arranging things around different photographic subjects (e.g. people, nature, objects, etc.) or genres. If you’re pretty single-minded like me, that doesn’t make much sense. (I shoot nature almost exclusively and roughly 95% of my nature images are landscapes.)

I tend to think about my images, first and foremost, by location, so my first layer of folders is arranged accordingly. For instance, this fall I spent two weeks in the Canadian Rockies. This was the first time I’d been to the region, so when saving my images during the trip I first created a folder called “Canadian Rockies.” Within that folder, I created sub-folders that corresponded to each date of the trip and the files for each day went in that folder. And that’s as complicated as I’ve made my folder structure For a place that I return to regularly to shoot—Starved Rock State Park, for example—I have a “Starved Rock” folder and subfolders corresponding to each of the times I’ve shot there, labeled by date.

Given my style of shooting and the way I think, this organization works for me. I put this structure in place more than 10 years ago, during which time I’ve placed tens of thousands of files into hundreds of folders and I still have no trouble working with this arrangement. Unless you work and think the way I do, this approach probably won’t be the best choice for you, so consider about how you work and think and create a folder structure that seems logical and actionable to you.

Filenames

While this matter isn’t necessarily a huge deal if you’re diligent about keywording (more on this below), I think there’s something to be said for going to the modest trouble of giving your image files unique, meaningful names upon importing them. The value is mostly in being able to see at a glance roughly what a stray image file contains. For what it’s worth, I use filenames that are—again—location specific, typically using a broad location name and a specific object or event (when relevant), plus a sequential number.

So, for example, one of my image files from my trip to the Canadian Rockies might be:

Jasper_Athabasca_Falls_3514.NEF

Jasper is the national park (i.e. broad location), Athabasca Falls is the “specific object,” 3514 is the sequential number. (NEF is Nikon’s proprietary RAW file format.)

Again, this method makes sense to me given my photographic predilections, but the possible directions you can go with filenaming are almost endless. As with the folder structure, formulate a system that makes sense to you.

As for how to actually go about changing filenames, there are a number of things you can do. The operating system itself is one option (e.g. Windows Explorer if you’re on a PC), but this approach tends to be clunky and inflexible. Most camera companies have free software that is designed to help you download images from flash cards and there’s typically rudimentary file renaming capability built in. (Nikon, for example, has a program called Nikon Transfer embedded with a browser called Nikon View. Both Transfer and View have tools that allow you to rename files in bulk.) Another more powerful and flexible choice is to use a program that is designed specifically for bulk file renaming. Once such program (Windows only) is Bulk Rename Utility. The interface may be a bit intimidating at first, but once you get the hang of it you can do almost anything you want in terms of renaming files, very quickly. Of course if you’re using a program like Lightroom, you have a number of renaming tools and procedures available to you.

Keywording

The question isn’t whether you’re going to want to apply keywords to your images, it’s (as usual) how you’re going to want to go about doing it. Once you build up an image library of any size at all you’ll rapidly realize the value of having a keyword system in place; a decent system can make finding images a snap.

My recommendation is to be too detailed with your keywords, rather than taking a chance of not being detailed enough. By applying both detailed information (e.g. location specifics) and general characteristics, you can very easily pare down image searches to a very small number of photographs, making it simple to find what you’re looking for. A system of broad keywords can help also can help if you’re doing a thematic search, rather than looking for a single image,.

For example, consider the below image:

Specific keywords would include:

Alberta, Jasper National Park, Medicine Lake

But general keywords (under my system) would include:

Trees, aspens, conifers, water, sunrise, lake, reflection, mountain, boulders, rocks in water, grass, hand of man, trail, clouds

Again, the specifics of what to include isn’t the point. You can see, however, that I could find this single image pretty easily by focusing on Medicine Lake and perhaps one or two other general keywords. But if I was trying to meet a themed request—say, sunrise shots at lakes in the Canadian Rockies—I could simply use, say, lake/sunrise/Alberta and pull up a search that would include this image—and all others that fit the criteria. Either way, I’m covered.

Regardless, a keywording system is dynamic. You’ll almost certainly find the need to add keywords to your inventory over time. The goal is to be comprehensive enough from the beginning that you don’t find the need to go back and add new keywords to large numbers of old images. Having too many keywords is functionally impossible. If you find over time that you have keywords that you don’t need simply ignore them going forward.

What do use for keywording? That’s covered in the next section.

Management Software

You’re probably going to want to use some sort of program to assist you with managing your images. There are a lot of options out there, but the most popular is probably Adobe’s Lightroom program. Full disclosure—I don’t use Lightroom. I use Bridge, also by Adobe, which is an addendum to the full version of Photoshop. I’ve been using Bridge for nearly 15 years and still find that it meets my needs. Lightroom is considerably more powerful and feature rich and many—if not most—photographers I know use it. It’s a perfectly viable option. (For what it’s worth, I don’t use it myself because I’m not a fan of the catalog format that the program uses.) There are other third party programs out there as well.

Once again, whatever you choose to use as management software, it’s important to be confident that it meets your needs and goals. One of the advantages of Lightroom, for instance, is that image searching is extremely quick. The compromise you must make, however, is that you have to buy into the catalog approach to managing your images, which can be a comparative problem if you ever have the desire or need to do any administrative work with your files outside the Lightroom environment. So, whether you choose to use Lightroom or not may be based on which of these points is more important to you. As is the case with everything related to photography, there are always tradeoffs.

Backups

I noted earlier that I wasn’t going to deal with this topic in detail, but I’m mentioning it here because nothing, in my opinion, is more important when it comes to image management than establishing and religiously following a well thought-out, comprehensive backup plan. After all, if your images aren’t secure, none of the rest of this means a thing.

I have five—yes, five—full copies of all of my image files, RAW and processed, arrayed across a total of seven dedicated external hard drives. Two full sets of files are kept in each of two places, roughly 200 miles apart, and the fifth set goes back and forth with me. If you think this is extreme…well, it may be, but I’d much rather be safe than sorry. I back up my files after literally every image editing session.

As always, you don’t necessarily have to do what I’m doing, but what you should do at a minimum:

• Back up your files regularly. Here, I don’t think I’m being extreme at all. Every time you add or change a file, run a backup (assuming you don’t have a system that includes backing up in real time).
• Don’t settle for any fewer than three backups. Why isn’t two enough? Let’s say that something goes wrong during a backup. Your original file set can be compromised and so can your backup.       In one miserable moment, all of your images could go poof.
• If at all possible, keep at least one backup in a remote location.       That way, if something catastrophic happens to one place (a house catching fire, for instance) you’ll still have a full copy of your images. The “remote location” doesn’t have to be 200 miles away (I only do that because I split my time naturally between two places), but it should be somewhere other than the same structure. A number of people I know keep a backup hard drive in a safety deposit box at a bank.

Conclusion

Image management isn’t a very sexy topic, but it’s a (very) necessary evil. Put a well-designed system in place, using an appropriate piece of software to help you and you’ll be able to easily integrate it into your postprocessing workflow. Down the road, it will save you far more time than you’ll expend putting it all together.

Thursday Tips is written by Kerry Mark Leibowitz, a guest blogger on 1001 Scribbles, and appears every other Thursday. To read more of his thoughts on photography, please visit his blog: Lightscapes Nature Photography.

Thursday Tips: Equipment Familiarity and Once In a Lifetime Trips

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photo gear, photo trip, Photography, Tips

So, you’ve got the photo trip of a lifetime planned—Antarctica, perhaps, or the Galapagos Islands or a photo safari in Kenya or Tanzania. Wherever it is, since it’s the “trip of a lifetime,” what better opportunity to finally break down and splurge on that new camera or new lens or new tripod that you’ve had your eye on for so long time. Since it is the photo trip of a lifetime, why shouldn’t you have the best? The top action camera that you’ve been drooling over, to best capture the animals on the Serengeti…the most resilient camera to stand up to the cold and wet conditions in Antarctica…the exotic prime lens to photograph the wildebeest or the penguins or the albatross or the cheetahs or whatever.

Right?

Let me just make one suggestion about taking new gear on an expensive trip—don’t do it. Ever. I understand the temptation; I’ve essentially laid out the appeal in the first paragraph. Don’t give in.

Trust me, the very last thing you want to do when you’re faced with once in a lifetime photo opportunities on a once in a lifetime trip is fumble around with unfamiliar equipment and—again, trust me—when your equipment is unfamiliar you will fumble around with it.

A new camera is the worst because it’s the nerve center for everything you’re doing out in the field. That new camera will have some new features—which you won’t be able to easily implement because—you guessed it—you won’t be familiar with them. It will also have some new ways of implementing pre-existing capabilities…and you’ll struggle to execute them because—that’s right—you’re familiar with the old way of doing so. There will be some new buttons, possibly some new dials, certainly some new menus. And when you’re out in the field, trying to remember where the exposure compensation button has moved to, the cheetah will disappear from view. While you’re fighting with the new autofocus system, the albatross will fly off. While you’re trying to remember how the new auto ISO system works and is implemented, the wildebeest will gallop away.

You get the idea.

While a new camera has the largest number of potential pitfalls, other new equipment can have its own issues. For instance, if you’re not used to using long, prime lenses, you’re going to flip and flop around trying to get used to finding objects with a very, very small field of view…to say nothing of the difficulties you’ll have getting used to obtaining sharp images with a big, heavy (here it comes again) unfamiliar lens. (A hint—it requires different support and/or technique.)

Even something as seemingly innocuous as a new tripod or head can cause problems. Each tripod model has its own system of extending and retracting the legs, with different kinds of locks. Heads have their own quirks—different types of quick release systems, different sized knobs and different levels of tension. A lack of experience with all of these things will slow you down in the field and lead to the frustration of missed shots. The same principle applies to other accessories as well.

The point of all this is not to suggest that you shouldn’t get new (better?) equipment. The notion of having better tools to accomplish a task isn’t a bad one. But the key is to obtain this equipment, and familiarize yourself with it, long before heading off for that “once in a lifetime” trip. Do so and you’ll surely return home with once in a lifetime images…which was surely the purpose of the trip in the first place.

Thursday Tips is written by Kerry Mark Leibowitz, a guest blogger on 1001 Scribbles, and appears every other Thursday. To read more of his thoughts on photography, please visit his blog: Lightscapes Nature Photography.

Thursday Tips: The Aesthetic Triad

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aesthetics, art, composition, light, Photography, subject, Tips

With my guest blogging installments here on 1001 Scribbles over the past couple of years, I’ve probably spent at least as much time and space covering technically related matters as aesthetic ones, which is completely out of proportion with how I like to think about photography. The technical points (e.g. exposure, depth of field, etc.) are necessary, but photography—at least the way I think of it and try to practice it—is an artistic endeavor. Technique is important, but it’s a means to an end. Creativity is the itch most of us are trying to scratch, presumably, when we pull out our cameras.

So let’s talk about aesthetics a bit, and let’s do so in a way that’s as practical and applicable as possible. (I could discuss the matter in ethereal terms, but that’s an approach that many—if not most—people find impenetrable.)

Nearly half of the time during my trip to the Canadian Rockies earlier this fall was spent on a photo tour. While this was a tour—with a particular emphasis on time in the field—and not a workshop, we did hold a few brief nighttime classroom sessions that were designed, more or less, as reminders of broad photographic principles. I was quite pleased to see the discussion about image making center around three broad concepts that I’ve long preached as the key elements of successful photographs: subject, light and composition.

Essentially, assuming good technique, when these three things come together in a single frame, a portfolio quality photograph ensues. It’s not that you can’t have a “successful” shot without all three, but for something really and truly special, you need to check off all the items on the list.

Subject, of course, is the tangible object or objects that make up the elements present in the photograph. What constitutes “interesting” subject matter can be quite subjective, of course.

Light is self-explanatory. What isn’t quite as obvious, however, is that what constitutes good light can vary depending on the subject. For instance, as I’ve said multiple times in this space in the past, the quality of light that is particularly flattering to a grand landscape scenic isn’t necessarily the light of choice for a waterfall or a forest composition.

Composition is the most subjective element of all and the one upon which the photographer can exercise the broadest control. The term refers to what is included in the frame and the perspective by which the subject is depicted. This is entirely up to the photographer.

Let’s look at an example, one in which I think the three broad concepts outlined above come together pretty well.

The subject here is pretty straight forward: we have a lake, lined by deciduous and coniferous trees on the left. It’s pretty clearly an autumn image, given the color of the foliage. We have a nice sunrise sky, reflected in the lake, and a backdrop of mountain peaks. There may be a few curmudgeons out there who would disagree, but I think it’s fair to say that most people would probably find this subject matter appealing.

The light is of the pre-sunrise variety. The sky is lit up beautifully while everything else is softly (and evenly) lit. Harsh contrast is avoided.

The composition was carefully determined. There’s a rocky meadow, filled with tall grasses, surrounding the side of the lake from which the image was made, and it was consciously decided to include the meadow and its components as foreground elements. The yellow aspens provide a clear sense of the season and complement the lake, rocks and mountains nicely. The mountains, as background objects, are perhaps the ultimate example of stopping the eye from wandering off into oblivion. The colorful sunrise sky (and its reflection in the lake) provides something of a “wow” element to an already compelling scene.

It’s a matter of opinion—it is art, after all—but I think all three of the aforementioned concepts come together quite nicely here.

Let’s take a look at one more image.

The subject matter is, at least superficially similar to the first image—though we have a foreground stream rather than a lake.

The light here is very different than in the first image, but the method of presentation is as well; this shot is depicted in black and white. The light here is far more contrasty than in the first photograph, but that’s far more suitable given the much more contrast-tolerant black and white medium.

The composition is fairly dynamic—as revealed by the rushing outlet stream—which complements the boldness of the high contrast black and white treatment, particularly as it’s rendered in the sky.

Again, I think the three principles come together quite well in this shot. It’s a very different combination than in the original image, but both photographs share a certain amount of success. This illustrates the point that there are different ways to fit the three concepts together; there’s no single recipe to success. (If there was, there would only be one kind of pleasing image, which is absurd.) The goal is to find different ways to make different subjects, qualities of light and compositions work together symbiotically. That’s the road map to successful image making.

Give it a try. Consciously question yourself—what light flatters this subject? How can I choose to frame this subject in this light to best express it? What subjects work best in this light? By asking—and answering—these questions and others like them, you can take your photography to the next level.

Thursday Tips is written by Kerry Mark Leibowitz, a guest blogger on 1001 Scribbles, and appears every other Thursday. To read more of his thoughts on photography, please visit his blog: Lightscapes Nature Photography.

Thursday Tips: You Can’t Win if You Don’t Play

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f/8 and be there, Photography, Tips

Back in the film era, there was an adage—really, something between a saying and a mantra—that went like this: f/8 and be there. It was, in essence, a statement that suggested that, when it came to getting “the shot,” the technicals were a whole lot less important than being in position when the opportunity arose. (The “f/8” part referred to the optimal aperture setting for most situations and most lenses.)

We’re now more than a decade into a mature digital age of photography, but the meaning behind the phrase still applies today, even if we’ve effectively left the analog age of film in the rearview mirror. In fact, if anything, the technical nuances of photography have become less and less of an impediment to the successful image making process with each passing year. The key has always been recognizing a good photo opportunity and being in position to take advantage of it.

(It seems obvious—and perhaps it is—but I can’t tell you how many photographers I know who routinely miss potentially great chances simply because they didn’t feel like getting up early.)

I relived this experience on numerous occasions during my recent trip to the Canadian Rockies. Time and again, after identifying a possible combination of subject and light, I put myself in the presence of the subject and hoped for the light. Sometimes it came and sometimes it didn’t, but when it did…I was there to take advantage of it. I wasn’t necessarily shooting with an aperture of f/8, but the principle remained.

Case in point: on September 27, I got up more than an hour before sunrise. My goal was to shoot at daybreak at Patricia Lake, in Jasper National Park. The problem? Well, there were several. The first was that I hadn’t had the opportunity to scout the location. I had arrived at Jasper after dark the night before. I’d never set eyes on Patricia Lake—I wasn’t even truly familiar with the route to get there, and I was going to have to find my way in the dark of the pre-dawn morning. I was also going to have to try to find a pleasing composition in less than ideal light. The other issue was the weather forecast—it was expected to be a mostly cloudy morning. Cloud cover was projected at 80-90% at sunrise. I knew all of this the night before.

The “easy” thing to do would have been to sleep in. I could scout the location in the light of day and come back, well-armed (so to speak) the next morning when the conditions were expected to be better. After all, I’d be on site for the next four days.

Of course, you know I didn’t sleep in. But if it sounds as though I’m patting myself on the back, or puffing my chest out, I’m not.  (If anything, this is a lot closer to an admission of insanity than bragging.) The forecast wasn’t for pouring down rain (there was, in fact, essentially no chance of precipitation).

I found my way to the lake, wandered down to the shore and, in the gray of dawn, found what looked like a good spot, and waited.  It didn’t look promising.  As the light came up, I saw a bank of low clouds covering up Pyramid Mountain.  But I hung around, just to see if something good might happen.

Shortly after sunrise, I was rewarded.  For about 15 minutes, a gap in the cloud bank revealed the peak, bathed in beautiful light.  For about two of those minutes, the clouds lit up.

I’ve been through enough experiences to know that special things can happen even when the odds are long. I didn’t fly 2000 miles to “sleep in.” This is what you do when the photograph really matters to you—as it did to me on this day: you give yourself a chance.

F/8 and be there.

Thursday Tips is written by Kerry Mark Leibowitz, a guest blogger on 1001 Scribbles, and appears every other Thursday. To read more of his thoughts on photography, please visit his blog: Lightscapes Nature Photography.