15 Techniques You Can Try with Tripods
Do you believe that tripods are an antiquity and that they only belong to traditional schools of photography? Not quite. Ambarin Afsar and Aman Agrawal tell you 15 fun ways in which you can use a simple tripod to make stunning photos.
When you take a tripod along, you create a makeshift area of steady support. This additional support can open up a world of opportunities. Exposure: 123sec at f/2.8 (ISO 1000) Photograph/Manish Mamtani
Technique #1
Slowing Down is Good
It is a common mistake to think that tripods cannot help with vertical framing. However, pay careful attention to the positioning to ensure that the rig doesn’t topple over. Exposure: Details Not Available. Photograph/Gaurav Gangwar
Take a breather, consider your composition and release the shutter only when everything in the frame is perfect.
Technique #2
The Silken Flow of Water
The movement of water can almost be a hypnotic sight. Make sure that you don’t fall in, though! Exposure: Details Not Available. Photograph/Parthsarathi Sengupta
How often have you looked at a beautiful wallpaper of a silken waterfall and wished that you could shoot it too?
Technique #3
So Close, Yet So Far..
For shots of water and ink droplets, you need to keep the frame steady and constant while the rig puts out one droplet after another. Exposure: 1/100sec at f/5 (ISO 400) Photograph/Leonardo Aguiar
While tiny wonderlands are amazing to explore, getting the details right takes some practice and some help.
Technique#4
Decoding Selfie-ism
The desolation, the anxiety, and the happiness you feel is best recreated and captured only by you. Exposure: 13sec at f/13 (ISO 100) Photograph/Sanjay K V
Self portraits are the best possible ways to explore your individuality and are also great practice grounds for learning portraiture.
Technique#5
Dance With Strobes
This image is set to the song ‘Just’ by Radiohead. The paint is poured over a balloon stretched over an upturned speaker.Exposure: 1sec at f/18 (ISO 400) Photograph/Richard Beech
Have you ever wanted to capture the trajectory of a tennis serve or even the swirl of a dancer? Try using strobes.
Technique#6
Drawing with Light
If you are hesitant about making sketches, you can simply make outlines of your favourite objects or vehicles. Exposure: 19.4sec at f/14 (ISO 100) Photograph/Yogesh Raj
Spell words, draw characters, bring vacant, empty spaces to life and transform the night into a magical world.
Technique#7
Catch Those Trails
Streaks can perform the job of leading the viewer’s eye through the frame. You can even make two exposures, one for the night sky and one for the trails. Then make a composite image that shows the best of both worlds! Exposure: Details Not Available Photograph/ Manish Mamtani
Long, winding streaks of light are quite easy to capture and can transform busy places into glowing lines.
Technique#8
The Unseen World
This image was made using a camera converted for the full spectrum. The slow shutterspeed is only due to gloomy weather. Exposure: 1/10sec at f/14 (ISO 800) Photograph/Manish Mamtani
Do you know you can use your DSLR to capture a spectrum of light that cannot be seen by the naked human eye?
Technique#9
A Bolt From the Blue
Horizontal bolts are quite rare and can disorient the viewer, besides adding more dynamism to the image. Exposure: 6sec at f/4.5 (ISO 100) Photograph/Abhay Nawani
We usually wait by our windows hoping to catch a glance of lightning, but here is how you can capture it yourself!
Technique#10
The Dance of Fire
Fireworks are not just limited to the sky. Spinning wheels and firework fountains can offer many amazing ground-level opportunities also. Exposure: 6sec at f/25 (ISO 100) Photograph/Amith Nag
There are a whole bunch of tricks you can try while shooting fireworks—from focus blurs to making bokeh.
Technique#11
The Veiled Beauty
Good foreground elements such as this aquaduct work really well with star trails made at the extreme wide end. Exposure: Details Not Available Photograph/Chirag
The night sky offers a whole host of opportunities that can be explored with long exposures and some patience.
Technique#12
The Orb of the Night
Try to use subjects like trees, unusual foliage or even high-rise buildings and urban structures to further balance your moon shot. Exposure: 1/30sec at f/4 (ISO 200) Photograph/Jay Z
They say that the moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to. Well, it is time for us to photographers to respond to it.
Technique#13
The Sequence of Action
The more unusual the overall frame, the riveting the entire action sequence will look. Exposure: 1/1250sec at f/6.3 (ISO 800) Photograph/Red Bull Illume/Vince Perraud
Learn how to build a composite action photograph in an extremely simple and hassle-free manner.
Technique#14
Sweeping the World
Shooting and weaving a panorama to perfection is quite an easy task—all you need is a great subject.
Technique#15
The Glory of HDR
While opulent structures such as cathedrals and banquet halls or grand hotels are popular subjects for HDRs, you can also explore natural scenes or even daily life. Exposure: Details Not Available Photograph/Robin Goossens
Have you ever wanted to get more tones out of a scene than you thought possible with a camera? Here’s how you can do just that.
This article originally appeared in the May 2014 issue of Better Photography.
Tags: Shooting Technique, Ambarin Afsar, framing, strobes, tripods, techniques, long exposure shots, aman agrawal
