I really
enjoy photography and I have wisely invested in a Travel tripod that does a
very good job – it’s a Velbon Ultrek UT-53D & QHD-53D Ball Bead. In
fact I realise how important tripods are as I currently own 3. One is rubbish I
brought here in Russia – it’s a cheaper supermarket job a DXRP – plastic jobby,
that wobbles like jelly on a plate – it cost me 18 quid. Yeah I know but my
other tripod was in England so I needed a quick replacement. The one in England
is a Redsnapper, great solid legs – but the head broke!
Here is the Photograph "Old Mother Rust" I took without a tripod! |
My main one
now as I mentioned is Velbron – it’s a good tripod and easy to travel with,
which I often do – but I have one problem – I am very very lazy. I often shoot
without using it, which isn't a massive problem until I realise that I lost the
shot because my Depth-of-Field didn't do what I wanted it to do. The example in
question will illustrate why you SHOULD ALWAYS USE a tripod.
Photography Tips - The Not Using a Tripod Scenario
Near a
village not too far from where I live is a really knackered broken down combine
harvester that has so much rust, cogs, drive-belts, details etc. It’s a great
site. Anyway I love photographing Rust. I had my tripod with me but didn't want
to use it. As I was clambering over the combine harvester I came across great
rust surface, beautiful colours with flaking peeling paint and rust particles
that made my mouth water.
So I started
shooting with my Nikon D750, with a Tamron 90mm F2.8 – bumped up the ISO to 320
to give me a shutter speed of 1/200. – This will work I thought – my aperture was
at F8.
A quick look
at the back on the LCD screen told me exposure was OK, and composition. Great
time to head home for a cup of tea and a biscuit.
Post-Processing - Oh My God Nooo!
When I got
home and started to process the images I was amazed and beaten by the fact that
I had camera blur, the images were useless, and the rust was not tack-sharp. My
shutter speed didn't work I had blur, the aperture (I set to give me what I
thought was a suitable shutter speed was too shallow!).
If ONLY I hadn't been lazy toad and got my tripod set up, I could have got a bigger DOF,
and shot the plane of the rust to give me usable images.
I used a
quick Depth-of-Field calculator (http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html)
and at the Aperture I was using and I noticed that I only had a DOF of 0.39 of
an inch - way too shallow! Especially considering I was shooting the rust on a
non-level plane (shooting up at it)
Photography Lesson I Learnt The Hard Way That Day
Always use a
tripod, don’t be lazy like me – now I have to go back and be a proper photographer
and do what needs to be done – re-shoot correctly! I really have no excuses…
I have
called this piece of Fine Art – Old Mother Rust
See if you
can spot the errors
The Art can
be directly purchased from my Fine Art Photograph Gallery here…..
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