The Tripod Hack for Lower Perspectives
David JohnstonYou’re a dedicated outdoor photographer, and you’ve learned that the tripod is your best friend. However, when it comes to intricate macro shots requiring you to go low to the ground, the tripod isn’t too friendly. What you might need is the tripod hack. In this video lesson, Outdoor Photography Guide’s professional nature photographer David Johnston helps you improve your macro photographs with the tripod hack.
David takes you to the forest floor for instruction on using the tripod hack when shooting small scene images like ferns, leaves and ground flowers. When going that low, the problem with tripods is the center column. It prevents you from getting close enough to the ground for that intimate shot. As David points out, background is an important element in macro photography, the main subject ideally popping out in the frame. In other words, the contrast difference created by focal length.
Enter the tripod hack. David demonstrates this method. Flip your tripod upside down so that the tripod head is now close to the ground. When you clamp the camera to the head, the camera is positioned upside down. Now you have the low perspective that lets you achieve contrast between your subject and the background. This is the tripod hack.
But wait a second. Now you are photographing your subject upside down, and that may look weird. How do you solve this problem? Simple. In post processing, you rotate your file image so that it’s right side up, and then you do the retouching.
Follow along in this quick video lesson, where Outdoor Photography Guide’s professional nature photographer David Johnston takes you down to the forest floor and shares his fast and easy hack to help you improve your macro images with the tripod hack.
Hey, what's up guys, professional outdoor photographer David Johnson here for Outdoor Photography Guide. And today I want to show you a little hack that I've found with tripods. And I love tripods and you absolutely need one for outdoor photography, but a lot of times the less expensive tripods, or even sometimes the more expensive ones have this center column here. Now, today, what I'm doing is, I'm out photographing macro, small scene photography and these little ferns in the winter that are kind of shriveled up, and a little bit purple in color. Just one of the subjects that I really enjoy photographing.
One of the problems though, that I always find when I come out and photograph small, macro scenes like this that are so close to the ground, is that I can't get my camera close enough to the ground while also keeping it steady on a tripod. Now I want to get it close enough to the ground, because I think background is the most important part of any macro photography. You really want your subject matter to stand out from the rest of the frame. So what I'm trying to get is enough separation between the subject, which is the fern, and the background to really have that contrast difference of focal length to provide me with a really specific subject in the scene. Now, I can do this in a variety of different ways.
Since this is in the sun, I can have shaded in the background, or I can find a secluded solid color, but that doesn't get me around the problem that I'm facing right now of not being able to get my camera close enough to the ground, because of this center column on my tripod. So, what I like to do here in these situations is flip my camera upside down. So what this is going to do is, it's going to allow me to get my camera close enough to the ground where I can actually photograph this. Now, I just raised the center column in this. And every tripod is a little bit different.
If your tripod doesn't do it this specific way, it probably does it in another way. And I just rotate this down, and then center it back up, so that I can get as far away from the ground as I want to. So when I connect my camera now, it's going to be upside down, hanging from the bottom of my tripod, and I can photograph this however I want it. Now, the trick to doing this, as you may be thinking, "Well that's just going to put the image upside down." Well, in post-processing, what you can do is actually rotate your image, so that it's right side up, and continue the editing process however you want to. It's just a really fast and easy hack that I've found has been really beneficial to a lot of my macro scenes that I've photographed in the past, that allow me to get really, really close to very small subjects that are situated very close to the forest floor, that allow me to photograph really low perspectives, to get a nice background throughout the scene, and seclude my subject in macro photography, which is absolutely essential to what you're trying to do with it.
My tripod doesn't do this, but I carry a GorillaPod which works in these situations.
Great hack. I use it all the time. My Monfroto requires “click” removal of some type of bottom stopper , then slide it in from the downside. It works great, but even my exposure info is upside down on the screen! But it works. Well done.
Not all tripods are capable of this. This is sort of a misleading video.
What tripod are you using