As a general rule I tend to make a great deal of use of my tripod. Actually I use 2: a lightweight Manfrotto carbon one when I am carrying it far and a more robust carbon Feisol. I have a couple of ball heads of different weights and a gimbal style head which I use with my 500 lens for bird photography. There are times however when I choose (am too lazy) not to use a tripod and hand hold. This is generally when I am out mountain walking, but then I tend to use a walking pole with a tripod bush, or when using a very fast shutter speed for bird flight shots. I always use a tripod for macro work. Recently I have thought tjhat some of my landscape images are not as sharp as I would like so I am not only making it a rule to use one, but I am I am using f16 to avoid the fall off in lens performance at smaller apertures and I am also using mirror lock up a cable release.
Below are the 3 pairs of images that I have taken for this project.
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| With tripod |
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| No tripod |
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| With Tripod |
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| No tripod |
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| With tripod |
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| No tripod |
The first two pairs if pictures were taken in Irby Dale on the edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds. Both are wide angle shots and although there is less sharpness in the shots without a tripod when viewed large the difference is not too significant. The final pair of images was taken at Worlaby Carrs, a site I visit to photograph the short-eared owls that congregate there during the winter. Here I shot at 85mm and by using a short telephoto and 100 ISO it can clearly be seen that the none tripod picture definitely lacks sharpness.
What have I learned.
Using a tripod helps to achieve crisp, sharp images. It also allows the use of low ISOs and small apertures which mean greater depth of field and no noise. Using a cable release and mirror lock up also helps to achieve sharp images as the vibration from 'mirror slap' is removed or reduced and there is no movement generated by physically depressing the shutter.
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