Is a monopod necessary? (VR / IS vs Monopod)

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Cheng

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For travel photography, is there a significant benefit for using a monopod with your VR enabled lenses?? The way I see it, VR gives you a few stops of steadiness (but not action stopping ability), which surely makes it the equivalent of a monopod?

I'm going travelling to California/Mexico this summer and I was just wondering if it was worth purchasing a monopod...? (For the record I have the Nikon 18-200 VR). Not sure if the price of a monopod (£100 for the manfrotto quick release) and the faff of carrying it, deploying it, then playing 'catch up' with my friends that have kept on walking is worth the hassle! Please tell me otherwise?
 
Cheng said:
For travel photography, is there a significant benefit for using a monopod with your VR enabled lenses?? The way I see it, VR gives you a few stops of steadiness (but not action stopping ability), which surely makes it the equivalent of a monopod?

I'm going travelling to California/Mexico this summer and I was just wondering if it was worth purchasing a monopod...? (For the record I have the Nikon 18-200 VR). Not sure if the price of a monopod (£100 for the manfrotto quick release) and the faff of carrying it, deploying it, then playing 'catch up' with my friends that have kept on walking is worth the hassle! Please tell me otherwise?
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In my opinion the only use of a monopod is when using a heavy/long lens to shoot sports etc and only to save you supporting the weight of the whole thing in your hands.
Other than that its just baggage.
 
I use a monopod sometimes, but it's mainly to reduce the fatique of using a heavy lens on a long day. If your nikon lens is anything like similar Canon ones then it can get surprisingly tiring to hand hold for any length of time.
 
CT said:
I use a monopod sometimes, but it's mainly to reduce the fatique of using a heavy lens on a long day. If your nikon lens is anything like similar Canon ones then it can get surprisingly tiring to hand hold for any length of time.
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^^^ As has been said.

It's also worthwhile noting that there is always camera shake present to some degree when hand-holding. High shutter speeds and/or IS just reduce it to insignificant levels, but it is always there.

I also know for a fact that when I've got a long, heavy lens on, perhaps with an extender and magnification pushed even further by a crop body, then I struggle to meet the effective focal length/shutter speed rule. When I've had the camera to my eye for a few minutes, I begin to struggle even more, to the point where I know I'm losing sharpness even with IS. Parking the lens on a monopod not only gets me sharper pictures, it's a relief also. But I'd say it's marginal with an 18-200mm VR if the light is decent.
 
So for heavy lenses, fair enough, it reduces fatigue, but for your garden variety 18-200 VR, which has no lens mount anyway and is 'relatively' lighter than your big 2.8 zooms, its pointless?


malla1962 said:
If you cant get a good speed then I would use a monopod.
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I've been testing out hand holding my VR and at 200mm I can get about 80% of the pics at 1/25, at 18mm 80%+ at 1/3 ... I'm not sure how much lower a monopod could get? Would I be struggling with a full second with a monopod? And then would this 1 stop be worth it?
 
I've now (hopefully) bagged myself a Gorillapod on the classifieds. Hopefully that should cover myself when travelling. Does anyone have any strong views on why I should be bringing a monopod as well, for travelling with an 18-200 VR?? Not trying to sound annoying, just would have thought more people would have a view, as I know lots of people love their monos?!
 
The only reason I use a monopod is a slight help in shutter speed but mostly because it makes it easier to focus on fast moving objects and panning. I don't think it would help much for travel photography.
 
Cheng said:
I've now (hopefully) bagged myself a Gorillapod on the classifieds. Hopefully that should cover myself when travelling. Does anyone have any strong views on why I should be bringing a monopod as well, for travelling with an 18-200 VR?? Not trying to sound annoying, just would have thought more people would have a view, as I know lots of people love their monos?!
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I wouldn't bother to take a monopod/tripod with that lens on regular walkabout type travel photography.

But I also have a Gorillapod to hand most times. They are easy to carry and I use mine quite a bit to get myself into group photos and so on. Good for night shots, too.
 
Cheng said:
I've now (hopefully) bagged myself a Gorillapod on the classifieds. Hopefully that should cover myself when travelling. Does anyone have any strong views on why I should be bringing a monopod as well, for travelling with an 18-200 VR?? Not trying to sound annoying, just would have thought more people would have a view, as I know lots of people love their monos?!
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Cheng the 18-200 only weighs 560g, and has VR why would you need a monopod. The time to start considering a monopod is when you start getting into the several kilograms range of lens.

A monopod with the 18-200 would be more of a hindrance than an asset.
 
For travel photography I would have thought carrying a good lightweight travel tripod rather than a monopod would be more useful, especially with IS/OS/VR/VC enabled lenses and usable higher ISO levels.
 
Martyn... said:
Cheng the 18-200 only weighs 560g, and has VR why would you need a monopod. The time to start considering a monopod is when you start getting into the several kilograms range of lens.

A monopod with the 18-200 would be more of a hindrance than an asset.
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That's what I thought (if you read my original post), was just wanting to confirm it!
 
In my sac I have a small bag of rice sown into a shower mitt, it's small and light, you can put it on rocks, fence posts, lamp posts, against walls, on your knees, kitchen units, backs of chairs etc, you can rest the body on it, or your lens, when I have the 70-200f/4 on I rest the lens on it.

The whole setup will cost you less than 3 quid and 10 min's work, the effects of this little bit of kit is astounding, if nothing else it's worth a try :shrug:

Steve
 
I wouldn't bother using a monopod for such a small lens. As others have said monopods are ideal for supporting the weight of heavy lenses and thats where they really come in to their own.
 
Personally I use a monopod quite a bit & would say it definitely makes a difference with image sharpness. I mainly use it when hiking around the mountains though when I'm carrying enough weight without adding a tripod too. I think any additional stability you can get must be a good thing

simon
 
Most people use monopods for motorsport, but in most cases this is only to support heavy lenses as previously stated. A heavy lens is something like the canon 300mm f2.8 or sigma 120-300mm f2.8 which are about 2.5 kg or canon 400mm f2.8 which is a massive 5.6Kg, it would be difficult to handhold these lenses all day in certain situations so thats why a monopod is used. A 18-200mm is not a heavy lens nor a 100-400mm or a 70-200mm f2.8 these lenses are all handholdable and you don't need a monopod.

And as for how low can you go shutter speeds of less than 1/100th sec, WHY whats the point apart from One-upmanship, you can still achieve significant motion blur at high shutter speeds and definitely get sharper more detailed images especially for motorbikes and aircraft.
 
I have to agree -if the lens is only 560 grams, then a monopod would be overkill.
 
I have used a monopod as a quick tripod on a couple of occasions. I can carry and shoot with the monopod attached, but reduced to 1/3rd of the length, so walking along it didn't slow me down. It is less than a second to extend and reduce the 'pod. Then for some long exposure shots, I kinda looped my leg around it (full length) to stabalise it. With this method, I managed a 1/4 of a second exposure of a waterfall, it is as clear as the 1/640 exposure before-hand, but the water looks much better.
 
monopod for your needs is a waste of time imho, i use one for sports and i found it useful wandering round the chase getting dear, as the light was rubbish, but i would never take one on my hols, i did use a gorillapod in vegas for about 10 shots out of 2000 but i relied on hi iso and steadying myself as best as poss. btw, the lenses i used (14-24mm 24-70mm) dont have VR and they still came out fine

check out my vegas pics here with no support or vr
 
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