Why You're NOT Using Your Tripod Properly (I ALWAYS SEE THIS!!)

so in today's video i want to talk all about this beast here the tripod the trusty tripod if you watch my channel quite often you'll know i absolutely love a tripod now i want to talk more specifically today about how i think a lot of people out there aren't using their tripods properly aren't getting the the best potential out of them um and perhaps the way that they're using them is actually having a negative impact on their photography as a whole image sharpness composition things like this so i'm going to hunt around for a first image we're at beautiful morkan bay today the conditions are fairly decent we'll get into that a little bit more let's go and see what we can find [Music] so welcome back to the channel once again guys and as always thank you so much for tuning in and yes chatting all about the tripod today but like i just mentioned that we're out in gorgeous morgan bay so a little bit of coastal photography today with a tide whoa that is sloppy the tide has gone way out and it's still on its way out so we're nice and safe and you know there's not going to be any of the sea within the frames we've got stunning views you know back towards the lake district national park over my left shoulder there you should be able to see in the background that is um what i believe to be lancashire's only sea cliffs i think um and yeah there's definitely a good opportunity for some landscape photography today with a tripod of course now i've come to this end of morgan bay where as you can see it's very very rocky um you know the other end where i spent quite a lot of time is just sand which has its advantages but yeah i wanted to come down here today to hopefully try and use some of these rocky areas um it's foreground really you know i think it's gonna make some fantastic photographs especially looking back towards the mountains and most importantly it's gonna help me to talk about one or two things with regards to the tripod also i mentioned briefly the conditions it is it's a sort of day let me just put this down it's a sort of day where you know any sort of normal non-photographer would look out the window and say oh it's a bit of a rotten day you know it's flat it's overcast it looks a bit dull and bleak that's probably true but those you know that's the hands that i've been dealt today so i'm going to try and make the best of it you know there's definitely some wonderful photographs to be had in these conditions i'm going to try and embrace that bleakness and try and let that sort of shine through into my photography um so yeah like i said let's hunt around see if we can find something to get ourselves set up to start with of course with the tripod come with me [Music] [Music] down by the sea [Music] so tell you what guys all of a sudden it has got pretty grim the wind's picked up there's a little bit of rain every now and again but we're out here living the dream and we're set up for the first shot of the day oh man it's a bit chilly as well i must admit now tripods i run quite a lot of one-to-one workshops landscape photography workshops where i'm out on location with clients who are obviously using cameras and in most cases and they're using tripods and i've just seen people you know continuously make these really small seemingly insignificant mistakes but grouped together they can have quite a negative impact on your photography so i've chose three which i think are the most important i'm going to talk about in this video now this first one for me is definitely the most important but it's really easy to fix you know it's a real quick fix very very simple and that is make sure whenever you're using your camera on a tripod make sure you've got a self-timer set on your camera i have a two second self timer if you've got a bit more of a flimsy tripod it might be worth using a five second timer concept here is really simple when you take a photograph if you haven't got a self timer on as you press that shutter button you're actually pressing down into your camera you know and it's actually causing this kind of like i don't know what you'd call it that microscopic camera shake you might not realize it but excuse me if you don't have the two second timer on your camera unfortunately it's going to capture that tiny tiny little bit of shake and it's going to have a negative impact like i said on the sharpness of your photograph so just stick a two second timer and i'll show you here as i take this photograph you press the shutter button the idea is you take everything off and then it takes the photograph it gives the camera and the tripod a chance to stop shaking just to relax and calm down and it's going to improve the sharpness of your photograph the image quality you know this is something that i've talked about before on this channel about you know how to generally improve the quality of your images and the sharpness of your photographs and this is really important and look at this if i've got this on single shot so no self timer if i'm just taking a shot like that look at that i'm pressing down on i might as well be shooting handheld there's no point in having it on the cam having the camera on a tripod at all look i'm touching the camera it's not right so make sure you get into that habit whenever using a tripod um you can also use a remote shutter you know a wired one or a wireless one probably even better there's an exposure delay mode on most dslrs exactly the same concept the end goal is that nothing is touching the camera or the tripod when it takes the image so nice simple composition here to start the texture here in the sand is beautiful and kind of working well with that there's quite a lot of nice texture in the sky and over here i think we just got these nice rocks that lead us out into some of the lakeland fells probably not going to be the best image i've ever taken but it's a great one to help display and this this technique with the self timer and i think i've definitely captured some of that bleakness that we've got here today that seems to be getting worse but we're going to work with it so iso 100 f9 and 1 100th of a second and two second timer here we go i hope you like this shot [Music] so right next idea about tripods i don't really know what to call it there um this one's gonna sound a little bit counterproductive really to people that have never heard this before but this is about not using your tripod really and i don't mean like shoot handheld don't bother using your tripod at all i mean don't be so quick and so habitual in always getting your getting your tripod out when you first stumble across a scene all right make it probably the last thing you do when you're ready to take the photograph so actually do do it in reverse you want to be looking at a scene you don't really even need your camera out to be honest usually i'm just walking around um and then make the tripod do the work at the end when you know where you want to put your camera i see all too often that people get the tripods out they extend them out fully so they're at eye level it makes sense because it's nice and comfortable to have your camera up there whilst you're doing all your settings but unfortunately it means that you're really limiting yourself and you might not even realize it you know you're limiting yourself and thinking i i can only take my photograph from here at eye level where i've got my tripod set off up but like i said do it in reverse you're in control of that tripod you're the king of that tripod and what i do i talk about this in my ebook you know my ebook on on composition in landscape photography this is one of my favorite processes of landscape photography now i've stumbled upon this rock usually i don't even have my camera and i just spend two three five ten minutes wandering around thinking about things what lens do i want to use what do i want in the frame what do i want out of the frame i want this rock in the frame i like these textures in the sun down here these lines that lead into the rock i like the mountains in the background it's got to be wide angle and the tripod comes kind of last really because i'm literally here looking through the viewfinder and i'll think right where do i want my tripod where do you want my camera sorry and i think i want it there and i'll almost i say this in my one to one i'll visualize it you know right that's where i want it so then i get my tripod over and make it do the work it might be a bit of faff but ultimately i get the tripod where i want it to be and that is so important okay so yeah just to summarize i suppose don't always be tempted to get try put out to start with have it right up at eye level so it's nice and comfortable um put it where you want your camera to be it sounds so simple but i see people making that mistake all the time so i'm going to do just that now i'm going to get the the the camera or the tripod set up nice and low so i can really make the most of this boulder and some of these beautiful textures in the sand [Music] ah so you might have noticed got a new jacket on on new jacket i've been home and got my down jacket and my gloves bought that's not the primary reason why we're home i think my canon m50 is on my video camera that i've been using throughout this whole video i think it just broke um about oh about an hour over an hour ago now it fell over during one of the clips smashed into the sand and i think fingers crossed it's just the lens that's broke but it was coming up saying f zero zero which i believe means that the lens and the camera aren't communicating so hopefully it's just the lens either way i've been home got the jacket got the gloves i've ordered a new lens for the m50 on ebay oh man absolute nightmare fortunately i've got the cr the trusty old canon g9x so we can continue today's video anyway back to the subject of tripods and this composition um we've got this one nice and low so as i was saying what feels about three hours ago to me now um it's so important to make sure that you're in control of where the tripod goes it may look like a ridiculous position but ultimately this low vantage point is going to benefit my composition you know if i was up at eye level like i was saying before if i just if that was just my nature to set my tripod up right up here plunk the camera on top this image would look totally different it's this low perspective on the tripod that i want here i'm shooting at 1 10th of a second so for me that's way too slow of a shutter speed to shoot handheld so the tripod is more than necessary here so that's why i've gone for this low vantage point and and really what i'm trying to get is these lines that lead up to the rock these nice little channels and honestly they look fantastic and again like the first image guys i have to say this isn't going to be the best image in the world but um hopefully you're going to see how the low vantage point definitely gives it a little bit of something we've still got some gorgeous texture in the sky i think actually the skies got a little bit better from when i was here before so that's good and yeah them channels lead us nicely into this rock which i'm putting centrally in the frame i'm focusing about one third of the way into the image and f11 iso 100 and one tenth of a second so i'll grab that now and i'm using the two second timer like with the first image and that looks fantastic i'll show you that now and i've got one more that i want to show to you um that i think you'll find pretty interesting i hope you like this shot [Music] give me love give me all your love all cause i want you no one else makes me feel this way don't know what you do hold my hand could you hold my hand look me in the eyes [Applause] you and me yeah that's all i need and i'll be all right all right so this is the last one really um or the last of the the three most important ones i wanted to mention in this video um this is one that i've not really ever read anything about i've not seen people talk about this before but i think it's so important and it's again quite similar to the first one with the camera shake it's all to do with camera shape but it's it's something that you might not realize is actually happening okay and today is a perfect opportunity for me to talk about this and this is all about windy days and so quite in in a similar sense like i said about when you press down on your shoulder button you're actually shaking your camera it's the same when you've got quite high winds all right so i think what i'm trying to say is you mustn't think that just because your camera is on a tripod that it's immune to any sort of camera shake from the wind this is an expensive tripod you know it's with the ball head and the tripod it's over 300 quid it's a really good sturdy tripod but even now i mean it's probably not even 20 mile an hour winds here this camera shake okay and that is actually accentuated when you're using a telephoto lens and that's exactly what i want to show you here so i'm taking this photograph here i'm in a portrait dimension i'm zoomed in at about 250 mil okay which is just going to increase the amount of camera shade that we're getting from the wind we've got this gorgeous little patch of light back over to this broken jetty towards heisham power station i'm capturing some of these cliffs that are jitting out into morgan bay um all in all it's just a it's the light i think that's making this photograph that's attracting me to to make me want to shoot in this direction really there's a nice glow but if i magnify in right on that jetty and then i take my hand off the camera i can see that it's shaking all over the place you know it's really really shaking and that's just because the wind is hitting the camera and again this is something that you might not realize so to combat this i mean looking at it now it's telling me my settings i want to shoot the iso 100 i want to shoot you at f11 it's telling me that my shutter speed is one fifth of a second that's too long all right because you're gonna capture all that camera shake exactly like the first image where i was pressing it you know one fifth of a second unfortunately with a long lens it's shaking a lot you're gonna capture that so this is something that i would do to combat it all right first and foremost i'd reluctantly open up my aperture a little bit so i'll probably go to f9 actually no i'll probably go to f8 i don't mind that okay which allows me to get a bit of a quicker shutter speed 1 8 of a second that's still too too long you know in my opinion so i'm reluctantly going to increase my iso and let's go there let's go for iso 800 iso 800 and that'll do me so now my settings f8 iso 800 and 180 of a second you know rule number one when using a tripod landscape photographer usually shoot at iso 100 but this is one of those rare instances where you just can't do that so i'm going to grab that shot two second timer and that's a nice quick shutter speed 180 of a second no you know so any of that camera shake that we're getting from the wind is going to be eradicated pretty much because we're shooting at 180 for a second whereas if we were shooting at 1 8 of a second that's a slow enough shutter speed you know that's going to have captured all that shake and so that actually looks pretty nice that photograph on the back of the camera i hope that comes out nicely um and i also hope all of that makes sense so as same as the other two i'll show you this photograph now i really hope that you like it and i hope it's come out sharp as well [Music] okay so i'm gonna get myself home now and get a brew because this wind has been fairly fierce to be honest um proper gutted about the old canon m50 but fingers crossed it's just the lens and it will be back to good health in no time but um as always the main thing is thank you guys so much for tuning in much appreciated i really hope you got some value from today's video and yeah give these things a try when you go out you know especially the two second timer one just be wary of the wary of the wind you know and how much it shakes your camera and that second tip as well is um you know make the tripod do the work that's what it's there for get low get higher if you need to as well if it suits the composition don't just get into the habit of setting your tripod up at eye level just to put your camera on every single time um so yeah thank you guys so much for tuning in and i'll see you on the next adventure [Music] out

Channel: Henry Turner

Views: 211,958

Keywords: landscape photography without tripod, landscape photography no tripod, best landscape photography tripod, photography tripod buying guide, photography tripod tips, landscape photography tips, landscape photography tutorial, landscape photography for beginners, landscape photography uk, landscape photography lenses, landscape photography settings, landscape photography composition, landscape photography scotland, Thomas heaton, nigel danson, Nikon d7200, coastal photography

Id: YHttPbcfMqA

Length: 19min 21sec (1161 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 12 2020