Choosing the right equipment remains one of the main concerns for amateur photographers, especially when it comes to the vast array of cameras and lenses available. But for certain accessories, it can also be difficult to know where to start, particularly when you’re investing several hundred dollars and want that investment to last for many years.
This is the case with tripods, one of the first accessories you may need to buy. That’s why I wanted to write a comprehensive guide on the subject.
When choosing a tripod, you need to think about how you use your camera (travel, studio, hiking, etc.) in order to find the best compromise between stability, size, and price.
Why use a tripod?
I have already written an article on the good reasons for buying a tripod, but a quick reminder is in order. A tripod is an essential accessory in several situations:
- Whenever you need to use exposure times that are too long to avoid blurring when shooting handheld. This will often be the case when shooting at night, for example, but also whenever you want to use long exposures, such as when using an ND filter or shooting storms.
- When you use long focal lengths (200mm or more) and you are below the minimum speed to avoid motion blur (slower than 1/200 at 200mm, for example). You can reread my article on shutter speed to refresh your memory!
- Self-portraits, of course (or group photos with friends in front of a beautiful view, if you’re tired of never being in the photos 😉 ).
- Certain creative effects that require either a long exposure or that you not be behind the camera, such as light painting.
- The use of post-processing techniques: to manage high-contrast scenes, such as HDR or exposure blending, to perform focus stacking, and finally to create panoramas. By the way, if you have trouble managing difficult lighting situations, I’ve created a training course to help you with this topic.
- If you are attacked by a grizzly bear, it can be used as a weapon.
- (No animals were harmed during the writing of this article :D)
- There are certain disciplines in which a tripod is extremely helpful, such as macro photography (to stabilize the focus), wildlife photography (to support the weight of a telephoto lens without getting cramps in your biceps), studio photography (to have a stable frame and so that the model can see your eyes rather than the large lens), or landscape photography 429 (to refine your composition as much as possible and wait for the best moment to shoot).
This last point gives me the opportunity to highlight a very important positive side effect of the tripod: it really encourages you to refine your composition, thereby improving your images.
In short, tripods are useful in many areas, and there’s a good chance you’ll need one someday. But how do you choose from the hundreds of models available? Let’s take a look at the criteria that will allow you to justify to your spouse that “yes, it’s really worth spending $350 on a tripod kit, look honey, it’s made of carbon fiber and it makes coffee!” 😉
Criteria for choosing a tripod
A quick note before we get into the nitty-gritty: keep in mind that the number one purpose of a tripod (without which it is as useless as a space shuttle in your grandmother’s hands) is to be stable. That’s the most important thing. The other things you’ll think about are, first and foremost, its weight and size (you have to carry it!), and then practical aspects related to your needs and your photography (landscape, macro, etc.), which are much more variable. Your budget will obviously influence the compromises you’ll have to make.
1 – The maximum acceptable load
This is the first and most important criterion: as I said, if your tripod isn’t stable, it’s useless. It must be able to support the weight of your camera without flinching, come hell or high water (literally).
Take the weight of your camera + that of your heaviest lens. If you don’t know what they are, you don’t have to run to the kitchen and use a scale: just do a simple Google search or look on retail sites like Amazon, where it’s listed (it’s also in the manual for your camera and lens).
Then, choose a tripod kit that can support 1.5 to 2 times that weight: this will ensure both great stability and future-proofing (in case the weight of your equipment increases, which tends to happen when you upgrade). This will save you from having to buy a new tripod in a year and a half!
In practice, the maximum acceptable load (and therefore stability) is closely related to the weight of the tripod: the heavier it is, the more stable it will be. However, carbon fiber is an exception (I’ll come back to this later). You will therefore need to find a compromise between stability and bulk: a very heavy tripod will always be very stable, but difficult to transport. A tripod that is too light will be easy to carry but will lack stability. The challenge is to find the right compromise between the two. This compromise will depend greatly on your needs: if you are hiking, you will need to try to reduce the weight (but not too much). On the other hand, if you are in a studio, you can go wild with the weight^^
2 – Tripod height
Maximum height
You typically have two maximum heights: with or without the center column. A diagram is worth a thousand words.