To tripod or not to tripod

Can you guess what's common between all those stunning pictures below?

Well, if you have paid attention to the title of this article, it would be pretty easy to answer, I guess. I took all these photographs by using a tripod.

Quality of the photos I took, from my perspective, is paramount. That's why I usually bring with me a heavy camera, or two, a heavy lens, or a few, whenever I travel. Especially to beautiful scenery places.

You've probably heard the quote: "The bigger the SUV, the bigger the tractor that has to pull it out!" :) That's especially true when it comes to tripods. From my ten years of professional photographic experience, I'd say that the tripod has to weight about three times the weight of the camera with the lens attached. Except if a carbon-fiber tripod is used. In case of strong winds that could even be not enough.

• So that's the main disadvantage of using tripods. The better the tripod, the bigger and heavier.

The advantages, though, are much much more, and probably that list below that I am now putting is far from full and complete:

• Create crisp images in the night or the darkness
• Achieve the best quality given the light conditions by using the "best" ISO minimal values of the camera - 50, 100 or 200.
• Have full creative control by setting your desired aperture (that star-light effect is achieved with values between f/13 and f/22)
• Light-painting. Shortly said, it's possible only with tripods/fixing the camera to something that doesn't move or shake.
• "Remove" people from busy scenes (if you check out the last photo below, you'll see one female silhouette but actually more than 50 people passed in front of my camera while I was taking that pic)

Now let me put a few more words about that first image. In order to compose it like that I had to use 100mm focal length on my full-frame camera. With tripod, I was able to use ISO 100 and the shutter speed was 1/10. With no tripod, the minimal shutter speed to use to have a crisp image, is 1/160. Then the ISO would "jump" to 800 or 1600. Not good at all with landscapes, right?

Yup, I often have back- and neck- pain but that is neglectful, once I have photos like these... :)

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