04-02-08 – A Second of Your Time, Please

Tripods aren’t really the place to cheap out.

Thom Hogan agrees with you. And I agree with him.

That’s the ideal solution, certainly. However, if you haven’t spent several hundreds of dollars on a tripod there are still some things you can do to get better images:

1. Most importantly, use a remote release or, if you don’t have one, a self-timer. A really sturdy setup can handle the vibration of pressing the shutter release, but a flimsy one won’t. Set it up, and keep well away from touching any part of the tripod during the exposure

2. Keep everything as low as you can. Particularly you want to avoid extending the center column if this can possibly be avoided as it makes the assembly much less stable.

3. This is not so much of a concern with non-SLR cameras, but the mirror slap from an SLR can cause blurriness, which is especially bad in the vicinity of 1/30 – 1/2 sec. If you can, use a longer or shorter shutter speed.

[edit: I forgot 4]

4. Shoot several exposures. A stray gust of wind or something might mess up one or two, but it probably won’t effect all of them if you shoot 4 or 5

I get heavy finger syndrome, so I’ve always used a self timer, but it’s a right thingy when you’re trying to photograph the eclipse on a cloudy night. I really must invest in a remote.

I’m also rather short, so I keep everything low anyhow!

I have some super ideas for this, which will all fail miserably, but I’m looking forward to trying them out. Had to miss From A Distance because my parents had come over for the evening, and I figured they wouldn’t appreciate me waking them at midnight to post or me spending the evening sorting out which photos I was going to use. Very inconsiderate of them all round really. 😉

I have some pics with shutter speeds longer than 1 sec. However, they were done in a completely dark room and I used a hand held flash, fired manually. So the actual exposure time is only a tiny fraction of a second. Do you guys/gals think that would be OK? Or does it stray too much from the point of the theme?

I’d be cool with a decision either way.

Side note – Is something messed up with the “Recent Contests” at the home page? The results pics don’t load for the contests after “Pictures at an Exhibition”.

I missed the distance one due to the power cord burning itself out on my laptop. I have quite a few long exposure pictures (well up to 30sec)
I’m assuming that “stacking” will not be allowed, which until I get a remote is the only way I will get more than 30sec of exposure

Good thing you only need 1 second, eh? 😉

I did end up with a cheap tripod, but not because I necessarily cheaped out. This baby folds small enough to fit in my overcoat’s pocket, and that’s what I want for hiking. Ok, so I cheaped out a little.

sorry about jumping the gun in the contest Elsinore!

My apologies to swampa for the fireworks shot.

Pah, thats just silly talk! I don’t see a problem with several people submitting the same idea (look at all the night cityscapes :)). Plus you submitted yours at basically the same time – let the voters decide!

/Two pictures enter, one picture leaves?
//It is no fun when you admit to these things as I was about to rib you about removing it 😛