What is a Tripod: Definition & Main Functions Explained

The camera tripod is a three-legged device that is designed to hold your DSLR / mirrorless / point-and-shoot camera steadily and securely to avoid shake.

Also, the tripod is used to take the exact same photograph several times at various exposures to create HDR photography.

There are cases when you take photos at shutter speeds of a few seconds or even minutes, and you have no option but to use the tripod. Besides, there are lots of other situations, for instance, when you do long exposure photography and need to fix your camera maximally.

In order to take pictures in the evening or at night, you have to increase the shutter speed to get decent exposure. You may even increase it up to several minutes. As a result, during night handheld shooting, the image begins to blur and lose its clarity.

In situations when the lighting is poor, but you have to use a long exposure, a standard photography tripod becomes a real lifesaver. It allows you to implement all creative night photo ideas to get sharp, detailed images at night and during twilight, even when the exposure exceeds the acceptable values.

Tripods are widely used by professional landscape photographers and specialists in architecture and panoramic shooting. While photographing a landscape, a specialist needs to be very patient to correctly “build” a frame, wait for the appropriate lighting, and finally take some beautiful images. Besides, some people are looking for the best spotting scope tripods to make their observation experience more efficient.

With handheld shooting, a photographer needs to hold the camera for a long time. They might need to wait, for example, until bright sunshine in the morning hours illuminates the surrounding landscape with its light. As a result, their hands begin to tremble with fatigue, which naturally leads to a blurred frame and distorted picture clarity.

Sometimes photographers intentionally increase the shutter speed to several dozens of seconds to capture beautiful blur in a picture: water, clouds floating across the sky, "traces" of car headlights, stars in the sky, and other moving objects.

With your equipment attached to the tripod camera mounting plate, you can show the dynamics in the frame more accurately. This is one of the most popular techniques used in landscape photography, but it is also applicable to other genres, for instance, portraiture.

When taking product photography in a studio, we face the same problems as while shooting landscapes. Constant, not-too-bright lighting, be it a room chandelier or a special spotlight, often requires shooting with a closed aperture, but, at the same time, it’s important not to raise the ISO.

The same principles are relevant when you photograph products using the light-brush technique. This shooting method requires a slow shutter speed. So, you need to learn how to use a camera tripod for shooting products with constant light to deliver top-quality results.

The tripod allows you to use the natural, diffused light coming into the room from an open window instead of the head-on flash. Such soft, diffused lighting is ideal for portrait photography, but in order to use it, you need to use a long exposure. In such a situation, the tripod will come in handy.

Sometimes a tripod is used not to fix the camera on long exposures, but to ensure the constancy of the shooting angle, for example, in dessert photography.

Quite often a photographer may need to shoot a lot of items (for example, for a catalog) from the same angle using a camera tripod. It is also important for offices, where they take ID photos. The camera there, as a rule, stands on a tripod and is already set up to get the necessary results.

The longer the focal length of your lens is, the more difficult handheld shooting will be. The image in the viewfinder will shake more and more when you increase the focal length.

With standard lenses, we can take pictures with a camera in our hands at a shutter speed of about 1/60s, but when shooting with a telephoto lens at such shutter speeds, a picture will be blurred.

Not to mention super telephoto lenses, which have a focal length much higher than 300 mm. Of course, the telephoto lens is equipped with optical stabilization, which saves the situation a little bit.

Actually, photographers who use super telephoto lenses often put a camera (more accurately, a lens with a camera attached to it) on a tripod to minimize equipment vibration. Besides, these models are typically very heavy, so you’d better get the best tripod for heavy lenses to ensure convenient work.

Time-lapse is a short video made up of photographs taken at certain time intervals. This video demonstrates the development of the plot in a fast-track time frame. To create a time-lapse, it is necessary to take all the shots from one point and angle.

Therefore, you need a reliable tripod for DSLR mechanism.

Many novices are wondering why it is important to use a tripod for video shooting. You need to do it to minimize the possible shake and get a clear picture.

Today, there are lots of stabilization systems for video recording, such as optical stabilization in lenses, special rigs, monopods, etc. However, the tripod is still very frequently used by videographers.

When doing astrophotography, it is very difficult to find or make a fixed object that will allow you to put the camera at the right angle. For night shooting, you need absolute immobility.

That is why photographers use a trigger cable or a wireless shutter release in order not to move the camera even by pressing a button. So, get a tripod for astrophotography unless you are ready to settle for mediocre results.

You need to mount your camera carefully to it to protect its lens and body. It’s especially important to pay attention to safety if you use incredibly expensive camera models.

When your camera is mounted and fixed securely, you can be sure that it won’t fall down when you try to take photos from unusual angles.

Before setting up a tripod and mounting your camera to it, decide on a frame that you want to capture. It’s better to do it when using your camera in handheld mode. After focusing on the scene, you can put your tripod in place and mount your camera to it.

To put your camera higher, you need to extend the legs of your tripod. It’s better to extend them from the top down. It will allow you to first use the most durable sections of the legs, which will improve the overall reliability of the construction.

Thanks to it, the legs will be more stable on different types of surfaces. It’s also important to spread them out to stabilize the camera even more.

Even if you opt for budget tripods under $100, they will have a bubble level that will help you estimate whether any of the legs require adjustment.

First, you need to adjust the lower section of the leg. By changing its length, you can level out the body of your tripod to make it more stable. As the result, you need to centralize the bubble level of the body of the camera tripod.

By making the tripod body level, you can achieve multiple results:

• Create reliable support for your camera;
• Level your camera for taking high-clarity pictures;
• Get an opportunity to rotate your camera while ensuring that it will remain level.

Each modern tripod comes with a base plate attached to the tripod head top plate. They can be connected with clips or clamps. On the base plate, you can find a quarter-inch thread. You can use it for connecting your camera or lens to the tripod.

To ensure that the plate stays firmly in place, use a coin to apply more pressure. It will allow you to attach a camera to the tripod more securely.

The last step that you should take is to click the camera body in place on the head of the tripod. All popular tripod brands recommend photographers adjust the tripod head to prepare a camera for shooting.

The main problem with a tripod is that it’s more gear to carry around. This is why it might be a good idea to use a camera backpack with a special strap for the tripod. In any case, you need to carry extra weight. If you use a large tripod made of metal, it might be difficult to take it with you on trips as it is too heavy.

You can use tripods of different sizes. While a tall tripod might be quite useful in some situations, it might be too bulky even when collapsed, which is why it is less convenient for carrying.

Besides, many photographers complain about the general inconvenience of using a tripod. If you need to work in a location where there are many people around, you might fail to find a place for your tripod.

I visited a lot of popular landscape photography locations and noticed that it might be impossible to set up and use a tripod in some places. If you specialize in event photography, the problem might become even more noticeable. Besides, some venues don’t allow photographers to use tripods.

Another issue is the price. Even if you decide to buy a budget tripod, you still need to spend money on it. A top-quality tripod from a well-known brand might cost more than $1,000.

If you are on a budget, there is no need to worry as you can still buy a cheaper model. However, price might be an important factor to consider if you are a novice photographer.