The Phoblographer’s Guide to Buying a Tripod: And Why You Should

If you think the world of buying cameras is daunting, just wait until you look at the world of purchasing a tripod.

Fact: you’re not as stable as you think, and a tripod will do a much better job than level ground most of the time. There are entire swaths of photographers out there who will tell you they don’t need a tripod. But truth be told, there are loads of times when tripods are handy. If you’re a landscape photographer or an astrophotographer, then you understand how fantastic a tripod can be. Image stabilization can’t do everything, but tripods do something that makes you more prone to creating a better photo. In this post, we’re going to explore the world and ideas behind buying a tripod.

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Astrophotographer Jason De Freitas Enjoys Shooting with Film

All images by Jason De Freitas. Used with permission. Be sure to follow him on Instagram.

“Initially astrophotography interested me more than photography in general – the fact that such stunning images of space could be taken by amateurs from home surprised me,” says film photographer Jason De Freitas. “As an engineer the technical aspects of astrophotography attracted me towards it.” He’s an engineer during the day, but when night comes he adores the process involving film. For him, he found that shooting with film really did not only slow him down, but made him a better photographer.

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How an Astrophotographer Shot a Rarely Photographed Moment

Connor M Matherne is probably the first amateur astrophotographer to photograph this occurrence at a black hole.

“This jet, in particular, was not discovered until 2017, so at the very least the window of time for someone else to image this is relatively small,” explains Connor M. Matherne to the Phoblographer in an interview. He’s an amateur astrophotographer with a Masters of Science in Geology and based at Louisana State University. If he’s correct, he could also be the first amateur astrophotographer to capture the relativistic jet from the Centaurus A black hole. “In the 2017 paper published b McKinley et al., they had the help of amateur astrophotographer Rolf Wahl Olsen who shot the same target and recently updated his total exposure time to 130 hours for it. Still no C jet sadly.” Connor states that an astrophotographer needs access to both great equipment and even better skies to pull off what he did. The breathtaking image above cannot be done easily–at least not by amateur photographers. And this isn’t the only masterpiece Connor has done.

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