Why you need a tripod for better photography

No one really likes lugging around a tripod.  But a tripod can open up a whole new world of photography.  Like a magicians trick a tripod can be used to create a lot of magic in your photography.  Here are the top reasons to use a tripod.

Sharper photographs.  A tripod provides a stable platform for taking photographs.  No more motion blur, no more unsteady coffee hands.  I took the photograph below with an inexpensive 70-300mm zoom lens of a barn cupola

and it is tack sharp because I used a tripod.  I wouldn’t have been able to hand hold the camera stable enough at f16 to take this image.  Certainly not with the amount of coffee I had that morning!

Tripods slow you down and allow for careful composition.  For the beginning photographer, a tripod is the surest way to slow down and really look around at the subject you are trying to photograph.  Carefully choosing to spot to open your tripod causes one to look first with their eyes before putting the camera to their eye.  Once in place the composition can be finely tuned before the shutter is released.   This works in the field as well as in the studio.

Tripods allow for slow shutterspeeds.  Tripods not only allow one to get images at shutterspeeds too slow for hand holding such as less than 1/125th of a second but they allow for extremely slow shutterspeeds to blur moving objects such as water.

A shutter speed of 1 second or more can produce beautiful blurred water in waterfalls, rapids or tides.  Something you can’t do without a tripod.

Tripods allow for better video.  No one likes shaky video and nothing says “professional” more then steady video capture.  Stock photography sites won’t even accept any video that has the slightest shake to it, so video needs to be shot on a tripod.

Summary of Why You Need  A Tripod for Better Photography

Tripods slow you down, help you compose, allow you to use lower ISO, smaller aperture, slower shutter speeds and shoot in less light than you can hand held.  Tripods also allow for “magic tricks” such as blurring motion.