Many people like throwing this phrase around: Let’s get one thing straight. Getting things straight seems to be so important in many things and photography is but one of them. For most things, what this really means is making everything clear because not doing so will result in some very skewed thoughts and “understanding” that isn’t really so.

There is a lot of good, sound reasoning behind making sure that your photos are straight. A good part of photography was focused on landscapes and it just wouldn’t have made sense if the horizon weren’t perfectly horizontal. Many photography enthusiasts like talking about Ansel Adams not even realizing that the guy was perfectly willing to lug around not only a heavy camera but also a very heavy tripod. So many brag about their DSLRs and don’t bother about the fact that to really get start in this pursuit, it is necessary to know that there will be shots that absolutely need an extra set of legs. They just opt to bump up the ISO with their digital cameras to get a fast enough shutter speed to allow handholding and leave it at that. While doing that is perfectly legitimate, it isn’t necessarily the first thing to do. For one thing, doing that results in more noise than is necessary.

But one really good and available solution is for you to do an Ansel Adams and just bring out a tripod and stick with a lower ISO that will give much less noise if any. There are a number of very good tripods that are quite light. It really does make good sense to invest in a good one and not bother with very cheap tripods. Been there, done that. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t make sense. It’s a waste of money. Save up for a set of legs that will cost around Php4k for the legs and then around Php2k for the head – ball head or pan head. This isn’t an issue of being brand conscious but really, stick to the major brands – Manfrotto, Slik, Velbon, Benbo, and the Chinese Benro. There is a very good reason why Manfrotto is a favorite among the professionals. They really are as rugged as hell and will serve as a good club to ward off bears and muggers. Will stick to talking about Manfrottos because, well, that’s what I use.

Some tips when considering tripods: Check just how heavy your camera gear is. What’s your usual combination is in terms of camera body (including the camera grip), lens and flash? Tripods and heads are rated for their maximum weight capacity and get a set that will handle camera gear heavier than yours as much as possible. This allows you to switch to a heavier body or lens without compromising stability.

Your first real research should cover the legs themselves. There’s aluminum, wood, and carbon fiber. Aluminum is the cheapest usually but they can be quite heavy. If you have an assistant or your arms are sturdy as tree trunks, go for a regular favorite: the Manfrotto 055. There are different variants of this workhorse but the tripod is basically a very stable set of legs that allows you to spread them as far as they can go. How reliable is this product? Mine’s almost ten years old and it’s seen one repair job.

A very, very popular (read: Good luck on trying to find it in stock and you may just want to order) Manfrotto is the 190XProB. This is a gem of a tripod. It’s aluminum but is still quite light to carry. I’ve used this on the sands of a beach in Catanduanes and also with a leg or two in the cool waters of a waterfall and it still works. Probably one of the best things about this is that its center post easily shifts to a horizontal position. That’s very useful if you shoot macro and you don’t have the long macro lenses with focal lengths of at least 180mm.

Now, about the heads. You should really buy a tripod head with a removable plate. That way, you can almost permanently attach the plate to each of your camera bodies (each plate is around Php500), your big lenses and even your video camera. One of the best things about the Manfrotto system is that they make tripod plates that will fit ball heads, pan and tilt heads and even video heads. If you’re in the market for a ball head, you can’t go wrong with the 486RC2. I also have a video head that takes this head’s plate so it really works out. I still need a pan-tilt head that will take this plate but for now, my old (and big) pan-tilt head which takes a different plate will have to do. It’s much more heavy duty anyway.

Please be careful about choosing heads especially with tripods that have non-removable ones. There is a definite difference between the video and photo head and one of them is the fact that a video head will not allow you to easily shift to vertical shots simply because a video camera will seldom, if ever, need to go vertical. Video cameras are all made to shoot horizontal and so their tripod heads do the same thing. How do you know? If all the head does is flip on its side so that you have easy access to the screw which attaches to your tripod socket, that may mean it’s not really built for vertical shooting. Also, a video head normally has a second, er, thingamajig that fits snuggly into a second hole which video cameras have and SLR/DSLRs and even point-and-shoot cameras do not have.

More on this next week!