Tripod for portraits

D-Eff

D-Eff

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Hello

I wondered if anyone had recommendations for a good tripod. It's difficult to filter out the good ones apart from the price.
I'd like to use it for portraits. I don't need top of the range and don't want to spend a lot of money.
 
If you want a good tripod, then your last sentence means you won't get one. Sorry. :(

A cheap tripod is just not worth bothering with, you may as well throw your money in the bin.

A quick search on this site will bring up many tripod discussions, so I'd recommend you start there to begin with. (y)

A few more posts will see you gain access to our classifieds section and tripods regularly come up for sale in there. :)

Good luck and welcome to TP.
 
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Hello,

Depends where you would be taking the portraits I guess. If it’s in a controlled environment where you are not limited by extreme weather, then any tripod would do. If you are doing something more ‘environmental’ you may need something more sturdy.
 
Sky said:
If you want a good tripod, then your last sentence means you won't get one. Sorry. :(

A cheap tripod is just not worth bothering with, you may as well throw your money in the bin.

A quick search on this site will bring up many tripod discussions, so I'd recommend you start there to begin with. (y)

A few more posts will see you gain access to our classifieds section and tripods regularly come up for sale in there. :)

Good luck and welcome to TP.
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I was hoping there would be a good one in the beginner/starting range. I've seen photographers recommend ones that are around £300+ and my camera isn't worth that much (excl. lens) :D

Sorry I did search but I only found posts on travel tripods. I'll have a look again.

Thanks!
 
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Nikon_Nick said:
Hello,

Depends where you would be taking the portraits I guess. If it’s in a controlled environment where you are not limited by extreme weather, then any tripod would do. If you are doing something more ‘environmental’ you may need something more sturdy.
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Yeah I'm planning to use it for indoor/studio environment.
 
You can get decent tripods for reasonable money so take everything you read with a pinch of salt ;)

I have a £105 iirc 3LT Travis which I would consider 'cheap' in the tripod market. I bought it for it's weight saving over my older tripod for long days out! I've shot exposures with that in flowing rivers/waterfalls, it's been up on the Brecons in the snow/wind, it's been on the Dorset coast in wind shooting 1 minute milky way images with a tracker & even 4 minute exposures with a tracker on top of hills....
 
D-Eff said:
Yeah I'm planning to use it for indoor/studio environment.
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A Manfrotto 055 or 190 may suit you if it's just for indoors. These can be picked up second-hand for around the £100.00 mark.
 
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LeeRatters said:
You can get decent tripods for reasonable money so take everything you read with a pinch of salt ;)

I have a £105 iirc 3LT Travis which I would consider 'cheap' in the tripod market. I bought it for it's weight saving over my older tripod for long days out! I've shot exposures with that in flowing rivers/waterfalls, it's been up on the Brecons in the snow/wind, it's been on the Dorset coast in wind shooting 1 minute milky way images with a tracker & even 4 minute exposures with a tracker on top of hills....
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Oh, I also use this tripod for my night star trail film photos too which is exposures of around 30 minutes or more.
 
Whatever you buy, get one that has enough height to avoid you having to stoop. If you're using the tripod on a long-term basis (i.e. in a studio) then having to continually stoop to see the viewfinder will get old fast.

I started with a Manfrotto 190XPRO. The issue with that (and the subsequent 3LT piece of junk) was that it didn't have the height without the centre column fully extended. And once you do that, you lose a ton of stability.

I then bought an FLM tripod (for a lot more money!) which stands 2.1m without the centre column and is rock solid. Never had to even look at tripods since I bought it. I think it was around £750 though.

They say you can pick any 2 of weight, cost and stability. Cheap & stable would = heavy, and with it being a "permanent" studio thing, that would be the way to go. For that reason, I'd recommend a tall Manfrotto one. Personally, I wouldn't buy 3LT. The one I had was rubbish, and I had one student on my course whose tripod literally fell apart on her.
 
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Just a thought, are there any camera clubs near you that you could engage with/join where they have an active membership and possibly someone will have an older but quite heavy tripod for a little money, that they no longer use because of the weight.

Such older heavier tripods are not well liked now but for use in a portrait 'studio' environment where carrying the tripod 'up & down Dale' does not happen.....you might find one for private sale that way???

But as mentioned above, you need one that comes up to a good height to reduce strain using it!
 
With tripods there are three criteria, and its impossible to have all three.
- cheap
- sturdy
- light

There are plenty of cheap and sturdy tripods out there, but they tend to be heavy
There are plenty of cheap and light tripods, but they tend to be weak
There are plenty of light and sturdy tripods, but they tend to be expensive.
 
You might be lucky and find an old (ancient!) wooden tripod designed for plate cameras - Gandolfi springs to mind. As a kid, Dad used to sit me on top of one of those! Hard to find anything sturdier, although they. Are. NOT. Light!!!
 
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Just to add my tuppence, I have been using a Slik 400 Pro for a few years, IMHO it is a good all rounder. I use it mainly for BIF with 500mm lens and also indoors for macro with a slide. So it should be stable for portraits indoors. Plenty of used ones around, in fact there is one on evilbay at the moment for £60 including tilt & turn head.
 
There's a decent tripod in the classifieds at the moment. Not sure if the OP is able to take advantage yet.
 
I don't think I'd be using a tripod for portraits unless I was shooting a large number in a fixed position with fixed framing or I couldn't hold a camera or had mobilith issues. Assuming I could hold a camera and had no mobility issues and assuming I'd be using a reasonable shutter speed as even seated people move I'm struggling to see a need for a tripod.

Anyway. Good luck choosing.
 
Thank you everyone for the replies. I'll take a look at some suggestions and hopefully get a chance to see the classifieds soon.

I probably won't be using it much as I'm quite stable holding the camera but I might try taking school photos and thought it will help.
 
D-Eff said:
Yeah I'm planning to use it for indoor/studio environment.
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Honestly? You won’t use it.
I’ll refer you to the video you shared, where the guy was boasting it was one of the few items of kit required, and by the end of the session he wasn’t using it.

Particularly where you’re interacting with a moving human, you’ll need to subtly adjust camera position in line with their movements. A tripod would be a PITA.

What seems like a million years ago I used to set up a small portable audio and held my medium format camera on a tripod. And in more recent times I carried one to every wedding I shot (thinking I might need it for multiple exposures). And I never used it, not once.

But to reiterate others, if you’re desperate to add one. Tripods are a 3 way compromise between cost weight and stability.
 
D-Eff said:
Hello

I wondered if anyone had recommendations for a good tripod. It's difficult to filter out the good ones apart from the price.
I'd like to use it for portraits. I don't need top of the range and don't want to spend a lot of money.
Click to expand...
Check the second-hand market. I have a Bogen 3020, a Vivitar 1321 and a wooden Zone VI Lightweight - any of those should serve you well. You'll also need to budget a suitable head.
I'm not familiar with current tripods so can only recommend what I have used.
 
D-Eff said:
I probably won't be using it much as I'm quite stable holding the camera but I might try taking school photos and thought it will help.
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If you’re fancying a dabble in schools photography, there’s some excellent background info on this site from Daryl and others.
 
If you are doing portraits you will need lights more than a Tripod as you will be working at sync speed usually 1/125> depending on the camera which is hand holdable at those Shutter speeds and you will be moving around the subject and moving the subject.
The only time I have seen a tripod used is for baby shoots where the baby is put in a cradle and the lights/ camera etc are fixed
 
troutfisher said:
If you are doing portraits you will need lights more than a Tripod as you will be working at sync speed usually 1/125> depending on the camera which is hand holdable at those Shutter speeds and you will be moving around the subject and moving the subject.
The only time I have seen a tripod used is for baby shoots where the baby is put in a cradle and the lights/ camera etc are fixed
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Actually it’s not uncommon to use a tripod for headshots, and also for portraits where the subject is static. However, as you say, not always necessary and flash sync shutter speeds make hand-holding perfectly feasible.

OP, I have a mint and barely used Giottos MTL8361B tripod with MH1300-550 ball head which I’m happy to let go (it’s always been just a backup). I have to confess I’m not sure what it’s worth, though, so would have to do a price check.
 
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