Take the tripod in holiday. Worth it?
Every time I travel, I ask myself “should I take my tripod with me, or not? Will I really use it?”. Of course, every time I travel having a plan, I know where I go and what I’m going to do, but I still had situations when I came back home without using the tripod not even once. And that because visiting a new place, a new city, I walked all day long, I had no time to stay and install the tripod, or it was not allowed to use it, or I couldn't go early in the morning or late in the evening, etc.
However, in my latest holiday I decided to carry the tripod in my luggage. And that was worth it as I will tell you below.
Spending few days in Valencia (Spain), I had the chance to get out to photograph early in the morning, before sunrise, or late in the evening, after sunset. And Valencia has (at least) one wonderful place to take photos - the modern buildings complex: Les Arts, Hemisfèric, și Museu de les Ciències. A perfect spot for architectural photography, with endless composition ideas. With water pools around these buildings, taking shots during the sunset or the night is so much fun. Speaking about sunset or night, it becomes obvious that you got low light, and the tripod is almost a must have due the need of shooting in long exposure.
Here it is an example of a shot with an exposure of 4 sec:
Canon R8 + Canon RF 24-105 f4-7.1
24mm, f/7.1, ISO 200, 4 sec
Another examples with shorter exposure times (1.3 sec - 1.6 sec) due the wind was blowing a little bit and my tripod is too light to stay perfectly still for too long. I used the same setup Canon R8 + Canon RF 24-105 f4-7.1.
What do you do when it’s not dark enough, you still want to get a long exposure shot, but you don’t have a ND filter, or anything else to reduce the amount of light coming to camera sensor? The only solution is to reduce the ISO at the lowest possible value (usually 100), and close the aperture of the lens to the limit of avoiding diffraction. Here few examples with f/16 and an exposure time around 2 sec:
Canon R8 + Canon RF 24-105 f4-7.1
24mm, f/16, ISO 100, 2 sec
Canon R8 + Canon RF 24-105 f4-7.1
48mm, f/16, ISO 100, 2.5 sec
Yes, I think the tripod is very useful, even in holiday. If it’s not too big, or not too heavy, if the luggage allows, don’t let it home. You can come back with fantastic photos from places you might not be coming back to anytime soon.
