Tripod movement with Long Exposures
anonymouscuban
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So I went out again last Friday to shoot some long exposures. I was shooting exposure as long as 90 seconds. I was shooting right at the shoreline where the water was lapping in and out. Didn't realize till I got home that many of the shots were total wastes due to tripod movement.
It was vibrations but more that the tripod was slowly leaning towards one side. I suspect it was that the water was slowly eroding the sand under the legs on one side, as the tide came in and out. I will pay closer attention to this next time. Aside from trying to set the tripod legs on rocks rather that sand, is there anything else one can do to prevent this?
It was vibrations but more that the tripod was slowly leaning towards one side. I suspect it was that the water was slowly eroding the sand under the legs on one side, as the tide came in and out. I will pay closer attention to this next time. Aside from trying to set the tripod legs on rocks rather that sand, is there anything else one can do to prevent this?
"I'm not yelling. I'm Cuban. That's how we talk."
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Worst case, my tripod will have some cool feet that people will ask me about.
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Luck happens when preparation meets opportunity!
Interesting product, those "snowshoe" feet. They look pretty good, although probably only work on Manfrotto pods. I do know that Andy Williams and Marc Muench go with spikes for the ends of their tripod legs at the beach, I guess on the theory that they'll sink in deep enough to find some solid enough ground. It'll be interesting to hear how these work for you, Alex.
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Just in case this wasn't a miss-type.......................DO NOT use image stabilization on a tripod! :cry
Sam
Thanks Sam! I googled info after your admonishment and it does appear that IS can cause issues with good tripods. With unstable ones, it might come in handy. Fortunately for me, both my wide-angle lenses do not have IS and so I didn't run into issues as Landscape is where I use tripod. For Wildlife and Macro-shooting, both lenses have IS, but I do hand-held only and IS must be helping me as I know I am not steady.
Good to know if I do land-scape shots with zoom lens in future to turn it off! Cheers!
Just to elaborate on this. Do not use IS when using a tripod. (That little dot at the end of the sentence is a period.)
You will really see negative results when shooting macro and using longer exposures.
The IS is actually looking for movement to counter and gets confused when there isn't any movement. It will create camera shake.
Try an experiment. Take one of your IS lenses, close focus or macro will be great. Using a tripod shoot something close with IS on and a shutter speed of say 20 to 30 seconds. Then take the same shot with the IS off.
The difference can be seen with faster shutter speeds but the slower shutter speed will will exaggerate the difference for your evaluation.
Sam
Sam
What if my camera is on the tripod and I'm holding the tripod while standing on ice in ice skates? And keep in mind, although most Cubans are great swimmers, many of us can't ice skate. Well, most Cubans in the US are great swimmers.
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While this may seem to be a complicates question, it really isn't.
First you need to acquire emergency room insurance for the soon to be broken bones. My understanding is that in Cuba it's difficult to get an ice cube for a drink much less an entire ice skating rink.
Next don't forget all risk camera insurance.
Sam
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I bought the snow shoes on Amazon for $31. I have Prime so they make it quite easy to blow money on stuff like this with their free 2-day shipping.
Here is a link to them on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Manfrotto-230-Tripod-Snow-Shoes/dp/B000ER51YY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393605883&sr=8-1&keywords=manfrotto+snow+shoes
The shoes arrived in a nice box. Impressed but I always wonder if manufacturers can use cheaper packaging for items like this and maybe pass on some savings to the consumer.
The shoes themselves are made of a nice, durable plastic. Pretty light weight so that's a plus. I think my camera bag weighs about 30 pounds so I appreciate they don't weigh more.
No real instructions came with it but installing them is quite intuitive. You simply place the tripod leg onto the shoe and then strap the rubber band across the leg. They should fit any tripod so that's nice. They're also easy to get on and off and do not require you to remove the feet on your tripod. Gitzo makes a similar product but they screw onto the tripod legs. So they won't work with tripods that don't have threaded feet and it requires you to change them out do use the snow shoes.
With all three on, the tripod is quite stable. I did notice slight movement inititially but once I mounted my camera onto the tripod, with the added weight, the wobble was all but gone. I then place the tripod on some loose dirt and set-in the feet and the wobble was gone. Also, the feet are secure enough to pick up the tripod and walk around without fear of them falling off.
As luck would have it, the one day we go from 80 degree weather to rain is today, the day I planned to go try these out at the beach. Hopefully the rain will let up tomorrow and I can grab some good shots of the storm clouds and test these puppies out. I will post my final thoughts on them then.
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Let's see your OK with free two day shipping that increases the cost of the product but question the nice box that costs $0.31 more that the cheap box?
You do know you bought the wrong model? You should have purchased the sand / desert feet model. Snow and sand are materials with compleatly different chemical, structaul, and thermal properties.
Also the last photo needs to be re-shot. Issues include wide angle distortion, narrow depth of field, unacceptable flash reflections, angles going every which way.
Sam
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky
when, after you place your kit in the water, that rogue wave comes in and...
(this happened to my friend
You obviously don't have Amazon Prime Sam. It truly is free 2-day shipping after you pay the $80 yearly membership for the Prime upgrade.
Well, if I can get David's suggestion to work, my tripod and camera will simply surf that roque wave, all the while capturing the moment through a 2 min exposure.
Kidding aside, one of the benefits of surfing most my life, I have a good understanding of the surf so I'm always careful.
I saw this happen to a guy in Kauai. I even told him the sets were cresting the area he was setting up on. But he was shooting Canon gear so it wasn't that much of loss.
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Your erosion explanation was close. I used to study the physics of sand beaches. If you put pressure on well-sorted wet sand at the beach location you describe, at the top of the wave-wash zone, the sand grains will unpack and slightly spring apart. (Counter intuitive, I know.) Most sands on wave-washed beaches are well sorted. When the next wave wash arrives at this expanded sand, the water will move through the expanded pores of this sand mass and the mass will slightly liquify. In the case of your tripod, this will allow the tripod feet to slightly sink into the sand. This is easy to demonstrate by standing in the same location of wet sand at the top of the wave-wash zone in your bare feet. When the next wave wash laps into this location, you will feel the sand slightly liquify, and you will feel your feet slightly sinking into the sand. The snowshoes may reduce this effect by reducing the pressure (force per unit area) on the sand, causing less expansion. Less convenient, but more effective, would be attaching the tripod feet to stakes driven into the sand.
---John
Get out of here with that scientific mumbo jumbo. They look cool so how can they not work!!!
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WOW...........absolutely, totally, free two day shipping!!................and it only costs $80.00!!!
If I order right now can I get second year of two day shipping absolutely free if I pay additional shipping and handling?
In other countries you would have to pay for two day shipping. Ain't America great?
Sam
A low, low, blow sir - and quite surprising coming from a man seemingly concerned with
etiquette and harmony among photogs...
btw... If I didn't know you from Dgrin to be a nice person, and I had just swiped your table at the bakery, and then I saw you looming over me
with a polite suggestion to move, I'm quite sure I wouldn't be messin' with the anonymouscuban.
bbtw... you owe us some Meatball pics!
HAHA. the Brand wars always make me laugh. It's so funny but I've seen some nasty Canon vs. Nikon interweb fights.
And yes, I do owe you guys some Meatball pics. Maybe I can incorporate him into my landscapes?
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