With all the Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas sales on at the moment, I thought it a good time to talk about the right photography gear for the job. There are certainly some great bargains out there at the moment and even I have made a few purchases or replaced a bit of damaged gear at really good prices.
But there is no point spending your money on a bargain if it is totally unsuitable for the job. The job I am referring to in this case is Landscape/Seascape and Astro photography. Thankfully all 3 genres use basically the same gear. I’m also targeting this discussion at accessories. While camera’s and lenses are also on sale, I ‘m not attempting to recommend one brand over another. While I personally use Sony Alpha camera’s, other reputable brands also do amazing jobs and like Sony, can vary widely in price and capabilities.
What I want to talk about is all the supporting gear that really helps your photography and in some cases is absolutely essential to a successful shoot. I have wasted a lot of money over the years on accessories that weren’t suitable so my goal here is to save you the money and heart ache.
So I’ll start from the ground up – literally!
The first question is actually – Do I need One?
For this type of photography – My answer is absolutely YES ! While for landscape photography you can often get away with not needing one, seascape photography often requires long shutter speeds and astro photography demands 10 plus second speeds. This makes a tripod an essential bit of gear.
There are literally thousands of tripods out there so where do you start? There are 3 major decisions that will immediately begin to narrow the options. These are
Believe it or not, cost has nothing to do with your budget. It has everything to do with where you are up to on your photographic journey. The plain harsh truth is that you should buy a pro level very sturdy carbon fibre tripod right from day one. But if you are just starting out with your photography and still trying figure out your shutter speed from your car speed, and I tell you to buy a $1200 tripod, you’re going to think I’m a complete nutter with way too much disposable income. So what I will say is, if you are just staring out in photography, then buy a cheapy. Your interest in photography or at least this style of photography may change and you may decide you far prefer street photography or portrait. In which case you may never need a tripod again so you have not wasted much money.
But if you are really enjoying landscape photography and just experimenting with astro then you will eventually upgrade your camera and lenses and other bits of gear and you will quickly realise that the cheap tripod just can’t hold it. You will get frustrated because only 1 in 10 shots work because everything is wobbling about. When you get to this point, you upgrade to a middle range $300-$500 tripod thinking this will fix things. This is the point where I beg you to listen to me so I can save the unnecessary cost of this step. If you buy this level of tripod I can absolutely guarantee you will be replacing it within 6 to 12 months. While they are an improvement over your initial flimsy cheapy, they are not up to a standard that will support you when you want to add a star tracker, filters, lens heaters, etc. So at this point I strongly urge you to go pro level. It will last you almost forever and will never let you down no matter what you throw onto it in the future. And yes, I bought the middle level tripod and it still sits on the bottom shelf of my cupboard and hasn’t seen daylight in 10 years.
These days Carbon Fibre is almost a no brainer. It used to be 3 times the price of an aluminium tripod but volume manufacturing and competition has dramatically reduced carbon fibre prices. While aluminium are certainly still available and cheaper, carbon fibre are generally well within most peoples budget and have the significant advantage of reduced weight, water proof and with the same structural rigidness of aluminium.
Travel or Sturdy (or Pro level) is a more difficult decision. The big issue with travel tripods is they are not very stable and wobble significantly in a breeze or as the shutter is pressed. I’ve had several customers who have really struggled on an astro shoot because their tripod is just too flimsy. The worst are the 4 segment extension light weight travel tripods. They move if you sneeze from 3 meters away and are truly a waste of time. The obvious advantage is they are light but what is the point of having a light weight tripod that can’t hold your camera still?
High quality really sturdy tripods are the hands down winner for high quality reliable results, but they are expensive and heavy in comparison. But heavy is a relative term because carbon fibre pro quality sturdy tripods can still weight only 2 to 3 kgs. It is generally the tripod head that adds most of the weight. Personally I use a really sturdy carbon fibre tripod even while travelling and I just accept that this is a necessity in my field of photography. My hierarchy of essential gear is a high quality lens, a body with the features that I want and finally a good solid sturdy tripod to mount it all on. This forms the foundation of landscape/seascape/astro photography
Now that you have decided on what standard and construction tripod you want, there are still hundreds of variations available. Let’s cover a few of them.
Size and number of segments – The ideal height of a tripod is one that comes up to your chin level. When you attach a camera on top, this will be eye level and a nice comfortable height to shoot at and not bust your back. Lowest height is sort of irrelevent if you buy a tripod where the legs can be angled out, usually via a locking mechanism. The number of segments is not overly important in a good quality tripod other than the more there are, the more you have to adjust every time you raise and collapse it.
Screw Lock or Lever Lock
This is honestly personal choice. I’ve had both and now personally prefer the screw lock type. They are just a little quicker and easier. They are also a lot easier to separate and clean. Lever Lock style require tools to disassemble whereas you can separate and clean the screw style in the field with nothing.
Centre Column (or not)
Surprisingly, a centre column is not necessarily your friend. As you extend the column, it becomes less stable and allows movement. It’s like putting a monopod on top of a tripod. You won’t notice much when using wide angle lenses but once you go 200-600 mm you’ll become a very angry photographer. I use the style of tripod opposite which has interchangeable heads including a centre column, levelling head and solid base. I use the levelling head 98% of the time (see image below). This allows me to level the camera system but has no loss of stability at all.
If you don’t get a centre Column, make sure the tripod itself comes up to chin height.
If you do get a centre column, make sure it is a very sturdy unit that won’t wobble at full extension (which is highly likely).
Weight Rating
Make sure it can carry the expected weight of everything you intend to put on top of it. This includes all the accessories like star tracker, filters, lens warmers, flash, etc, etc. Most pro level tripods should meet this.
Feet
This may seem irrelevant but actually makes a big difference to the stability of the tripod. For outdoor use, the spikes are brilliant and they are usually my standard setup. However my wife gets very angry when I use them on our timber lounge room floors so perhaps swap to rubber feet then.
This is another area where there are just so many choices. On this occasion I do have some very specific recommendations for Landscape/Seascape/Astro to help narrow the field.
Ball Heads
I HATE THEM! To be even more clear – I SERIOUSLY HATE THEM!
The problem with a ball head is the moment you release them to make even the slightest adjustment, you loose control in all 3 axis and are back to square one. If you just want to raise the camera a little bit, the moment you release the grip, you also lose level and direction (yaw). In daylight, this can be quickly regained because you can easily see the image, but if you actually pay attention, you are moving the camera in all 3 axis, just mostly in pitch. At night time when you can barely see the composition, it’s a disaster and takes many attempts to reposition where you want. They are marketed as a quick action mechanism. What they don’t mention is you have to do the quick action 5 to 10 times to get it right.
Geared Heads
I LOVE THEM! To be even more clear – I SERIOUSLY LOVE THEM!
A geared head (or Similar) eliminates all the problems I mentioned above. They allow precise perfect adjustment and composition in one axis at a time. If you want to raise the camera, you wind the up knob but the level and yaw are “LOCKED IN”. You can make fantastically precise major or minor adjustments to the camera position and therefore composition. Most have a quick release mechanism to allow fast major adjustments like a ball head, but then give extremely precise control in each axis separately for that final finesse.
These were not very common and were the domain of Architecture photographers at astronomical prices. But these days there are various designs at various prices with some being comparable to ball head prices anyway.
Other options include Gimbal or even Video heads. The point being that any head that allows adjustment in only ONE axis at a time is the best by far.
Brands
Effectively, any well known reputable brand is fine. However I caution you against Manfrotto. Their gear is superb and I have no issues with their quality, construction, service or operation. The issue is that Manfrotto use a base attachment plate that is very specific to the Manfrotto brand ONLY. Most manufacturers of 3rd party equipment like tripods, heads, lights, stands, Star Trackers, etc, etc use Arca Swiss style base plates. Therefore if you purchase a Manfrotto tripod or head, you have just eliminated 99.9% of all accessories that you can use in the future. Even within Manfrotto, they have various size and shaped plates that are just not compatible with anything else or even other Manfrotto equipment. So while the quality is excellent, you have locked yourself out of almost all future expansion
The final bit of gear I’ll talk about today is a levelling base. These are a very handy unit that fits between the top of the tripod and the head. It allows you to quickly level the head and camera for perfect horizons and is critical for panorama’s. You can certainly achieve level by adjusting the tripod legs individually but these units speed that process up immensely. There are various types ranging from screw thread to fluid filled. Just make sure you get that holds your expected load rating just like a tripod and head. They are not essential but very helpful.
I hope this helps with your decisions if you are looking for a bargain at the moment. If you have any comments or questions, please ask in the comments section below and I’ll try to answer them.
Cheers for now
Levin
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