Tripods are a WASTE OF MONEY?!!!

Morgan

5 years ago

Hi, it’s Jay P Morgan and today I wanted to spell out the 4 reasons why most people don’t carry around a tripod, and give you the 4 reasons you absolutely should!

Excuse #1: Too Expensive!

Most people don’t carry around a tripod because they think they are too expensive! They don’t want to buy a tripod. You know, after you’ve spent all that money on a camera and a lens, without a good tripod, you don’t unlock 50% of the exposure triangle. You can’t get motion images in love light, in sunlight – you lose so many opportunities without a tripod.

Spend the money! A great little tripod like the VEO here is super reasonable and it’s a great way to get into the market; it’s lightweight, and it gives you the opportunity to have a tripod without spending a whole lot of money!

Excuse #2: Too Heavy

Next excuse is it’s too heavy! You have so many travel tripod options today that are very lightweight! This little VEO is 3 pounds! It gives you a great opportunity to carry it around with you wherever you go and it’s not super heavy.

Click to find the best course for you!

Excuse #3: Hard to Carry

A lot of people argue that tripods are too difficult to carry around, but this Vanguard VEO 2X is super lightweight and super compact, and it’s just a great travel tripod to carry around. They’re not that cumbersome these days. They’re compact, tight and designed to be a great little tripod to have on you all the time.

So don’t let the fact that they are too heavy, too expensive or too cumbersome to be the reason you don’t carry a tripod.

What’s the last reason people don’t carry a tripod?

Excuse #4: Too Long to Set Up!

They say it takes too much time to set up! “I don’t want to bother with them! I just want to start shooting”, you know, there’s a simple solution to that. Just drop this thing out of your bag, drop the legs, put your camera on it when you get to your location and then don’t put it away again! Hold it like this as you walk around from location to location and keep it out the entire time you shoot! You can still pull your camera off and out it back on, but there’s no reason you can’t have your camera on your tripod and have it out the entire time.

So there’s 4 reasons why people don’t carry a tripod, and I think they’re lame! So here’s 4 reasons you should carry a tripod.

#1: Unlock Entire Exposure Triangle

The number 1 reason you should use a tripod is it unlocks the entire exposure triangle. Now you’re not just locked into a shorter shutter like when you’re handheld. It allows you in daylight to put an ND filter on and go to a longer shutter speed, which allows me to blur the water here.

#2: Shooting With Long Lenses

So the second reason to use a tripod and probably one of the most obvious ones is, when you’re using long lenses! When I was Uganda I saw these tall cranes off in the distance and I knew I had to run back to the hotel to get my 15-600mm Tamron Lens, but once I got back out there I didn’t have a tripod and was trying to hold this huge lens and we were losing light, so I got like 1 out of 10 that were in focus, but if I had my tripod, I would have had 8 out of 10. It’s just so much easier with a tripod for a long lens. Even with this 70-200mm. If you’re not shooting at 500/sec, if you’re shooting at 250, you’ve got to have a tripod.

#3 Time Lapse

You NEED a tripod to make a time lapse, not just because I want my edelkrone to be able to have a base to move the shot, but because I want a long motion on my cars, I don’t want my cars to be frozen.

So my settings here are very simple:

Aperture Priority

f10

Auto Shutter

100 ISO

I’ll get into light room later and fix the images because I’m shooting on RAW, then I’ll get rid of the flicker and ramp the exposure.

Double whammy with that one; stabilizations, motion control and the ability to give myself longer exposure to blur the cars.

#4 Night Street Photography!

Street photography is one of my favorite things in the world, especially when I’m traveling! As the light transitions from day into evening, you get that beautiful time when the lights are turning on but there’s still a small amount of light in the sky.

In this setting you need a tripod, otherwise you gotta crank you ISO and that will not make your images look good. I shoot on 100 ISO and use my tripod.

I was traveling in Brazil one time and I didn’t bring a tripod on the trip, and I went and bought one in the town the next morning and I had done that 3 times that year. That is when I decided I am going to have a tripod on me, all the time, every time I travel! Every time I’m walking out of that hotel, I always have my tripod in my backpack ready for those moments that come up and I’m prepared to shoot almost anything!

Having a tripod also slows you down a little bit – you set the tripod down in a certain spot, you compose your image. You think about it and you’re very calculated.

I do love the VEO series from Vanguard because they’ve gotten lighter and more compact.

This one is fabulous because you can push some lens off and it becomes a monopod!

So they are just great tripods for traveling around and Vanguard has done an excellent job of making them more lightweight, compact and travel friendly!

Make sure to stay in touch with the TSL family by connecting with us on Facebook and Instagram.

Keep those cameras rolling and keep on clickin.

GEAR USED:

Vanguard VEO 2x 265CBP
B&H: https://bhpho.to/2JZBnS6
Amazon: https://amzn.to/36JVXiQ

Vanguard VEO 265AB
B&H: https://bhpho.to/2JWHm9U
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Vanguard VEO 2 204CB
B&H: https://bhpho.to/2WRjKJe
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2oWbGdD

Vanguard VEO 2 204AB
B&H: https://bhpho.to/2rAc3Zh
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2PWEu0T

Vanguard VEO 2 Pro 203CPV
B&H: https://bhpho.to/33r9JVN
Amazon: https://amzn.to/33mIRGh

Vanguard VEO 2 204AB
B&H: https://bhpho.to/2rAc3Zh
Amazon: https://amzn.to/36Hx8En

Canon EOS R
B&H: https://bhpho.to/2roExVE
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2PVtsZC

Tamron 35-150mm
B&H: https://bhpho.to/2yqhcXe
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2PXkR8W

Tamron 70-200mm
B&H: https://bhpho.to/2IEAOdO
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2pS2JCv