REASONS WHY TRIPODS WILL OUTLAST ALL THE MODERN DIGITAL GADGETS
1 For ultimate sharpness. Do not imagine that because you can shoot at 1/250 your picture will be sharp. The question is what is acceptable sharpness? At a 4R prints, even relatively unsharp pictures are acceptable to the undiscerning eyes
2 For including your self in the picture
3 When taking pictures such as landscapes. You arrive at a location, scout your best vantage point, choose the right lens, frame the picture, then wait for the right light, right clouds, wind to stop etc. Then you trip the shutter. Try to do that without a tripod! Once I took a series of pictures running up from an underground station. I set the camera up, prefocussed everything, determined the exposure, put in a cable, and waited for people to run up and then clicked! Nobody even knew that I was taking those pictures!
4 When the cameras are just too darn heavy! I am talking about view cameras. Not withstanding modern digital marvels, digital cameras still are light years behind in terms of absolute resolution compared to large and for the uninitiated, ultralarge format cameras. With a 8x10 camera, the resolution is equivalent to your 1000+ megapixels. And I am not talking about 11x14 or larger! Er, how many mega pixels does the 1Ds have? or the medium format digital backs? Er 20? 25 megapixels? Another reason for these sort of view cameras is precise framing and correction of perspective. You need to put the camera on stable tripods to make adjustment
5 When cameras are just too darn heavy! Here I am talking about you Canon 1Ds with lenses that require three persons to carry. Saw them in football fields and the coming oylmpics? Can you hand carry them to shoot! Even Magnus cannot do it without creating photo that looks as if an earthquake had occurred at the time you click the shutter!
6 When you do macro
7 For long exposures. These are VERY VERY common. For photogs doing fine art, landscapes and night photography. For those whose photography is limited to fashion shots with popping flashes, perhaps these are not apparent to you.
8 For photographing fireworks. Bring your tripods this weekend!
9 Last (perhaps there are more!) for self protection. This actually happened. A guy was photographying some place overseas, and a couple of blokes with apparent unfriendly intentions approached him, he quickly dismanteled his camera from the tripod, put the legs together and show the spickes at the end of the tripods. Cursing, the unsavory blokes walked away!
10 Oh, I miss that one Yildun wrote. To "choop" places!! Ah, very "Singaporean"! Very "kiasu". But very practical! :bsmilie: