They are the most under-appreciated component of your kit. You may pay hundreds or thousands of pounds to get the latest high resolution camera or lens, but the simplest and most cost-effective way of obtaining the sharpest photos is to get a good tripod and use it.

First of all, bring a tripod with you if you can. Obviously, a tripod is useless for street photography but for many other activities, a tripod becomes practical. For some types of shot, such as night photography (left), it is essential.

Get the best you can afford. There is no perfect tripod, but there are plenty of terrible ones. A tripod needs to be sufficient for the equipment you are going to mount upon it. It also needs to be light and compact enough so that you will take it with you. Unfortunately, this usually means that the third variable, cost, is the one to suffer. But the old adage, “buy cheap, buy twice”, applies especially to tripods.

Depending on what you shoot, you may require several tripods. I have a large sturdy tripod which never leaves the building where my office is. I use it for product shots, groups, and self-portraits. For general travel, I have a Benro C-169M8 Travel Angel carbon fibre tripod similar to this. It is for me the right balance of compactness (39cm folded), lightness (1.3kg), and sturdiness (8kg max. load) for doing panoramas and long-exposure photography. If I need an even more compact tripod, I have a Sirui T-1205x tripod which shaves a few hundred grams and a few centimetres in length. I also bought a Benro Traveller Flat C1190T as I was intrigued by the way it folded flat. It occasionally gets used when I have to pack it in a tight space where a conventional tripod would be too thick.

I still have and use a Gitzo G1028MkII Mountaineer tripod which I bought about a decade ago. Compared to more recent tripods, it’s still very light and packs down with the centre column reversed (without having to bend the legs 180 degrees). The rotating leg locks are a bit fiddly and it’s not quite as sturdy as the Benro and Sirui tripods but with care it can still provide sharp panos. If I had the budget, I’d look at getting a GK1580TQR5.

If carbon fibre is beyond your budget, another option for a compact but still acceptably sturdy tripod is Velbon. Their Ultra Luxi or Rexi range pack down quite nicely and have a quick leg un/locking mechanism. The Luxi comes in L and M sizes, I found the M to be reasonably high. The Ultra Maxi tripods unfortunately do not allow you to swap the head restricting you to the included panhead. The Rexi comes without a head, whilst the Luxi panhead can be replaced, something I advise if you want a more compact setup, the standard one is quite large and heavy.

My tripod selection is skewed towards wide angle and shot teleprime lens use. If you use longer, heavier lenses, then you may need to look at large and heavier tripods to get the required stability. One has to also remember an equally important part of your tripod and that is the head. I’ll address that in a later post. I shall also cover tripod technique.