The best tripod...

Just like the best camera is the one that you have with you, the best tripod is the one that you carry. And just like I replaced a more complete set of lenses with the Tamron 24-135, I stopped carrying my regular tripod on my hikes for convenience reasons. I think that a tripod in general is just too heavy to carry around, and it's uncomfortable and somewhat bulky too - not exactly the thing you want to haul around on hikes that last a couple of hours. No, I'm not a masochist, and with modern camera's high ISO image quality, it's not really necessary to carry a tripod all the time, anyway*.

Except for the occasional long time exposure. On my way back down to the Heutal from the Sonntagshorn peak I was attracted by the beautiful creek that runs along the last part of the trail:


Hochalmbach (NIKON D700, 10s @ ISO 100; f/25, 34 mm (in 35mm)

I made it a habit to carry an old and veeery very lightweight tripod with me on my hikes, it seems to weigh no more that some 300-400 grams, and I used it for this photo. And it occurred to me that I should document this, so I made a photo of that wonderful helper, too:


Featherweight tripod (NIKON D700, 1/60s @ ISO 500; f/5.3, 82 mm (in 35mm)

It's really really only suited for a compact camera, but it holds the D700 + Tamron 24-135 if I only extend one of the leg sections (as shown in the above photo) which is enough for many situations. I didn't have my cable release with me, so in order to minimize camera shake on that flaky little tripod, I set the camera to a self-timer and turned on the automatic mirror pre-release (the mirror is moved up and only after a short delay the shutter is opened to reduce the shake from the mirror movement).

Well, perhaps it wasn't really necessary, because using a polarizer and stopping the lens down as far as possible to get an exposure time long enough to nicely blur the water degraded the image quality anyway. :-)

*) Yes, blasphemy - what about the precise framing, composition, etc. etc. - I hear you, I hear you... :)

And a late PS: I wrote about capturing water in motion before here. I'm glad that what I said is true for the above photo of the brook - 10 seconds are required to make it really smooth. This is especially important because of the little pond - the water creates reoccurring ripples and bubbles there that move in circles, and anything below 10 seconds just doesn't look good. 15 or more seconds would have been ideal, but I didn't have my neutral density filter with me.