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Guide to Buying Camcorder Tripods

You just popped a pretty penny for your camera and have little left over for a tripod or other support. So you hope to get by with that cheap dimestore tool until you can upgrade later. Here's how to go from entry-level shooter to pro in four steps:

First buy a cheap tripod at the local department store for, say, fifty bucks. Use it a few times, just to get used to the idea of having a tripod. Then use it a few more times, and make sure you scratch it up pretty well, so you can't return it. Then try out somebody else's nice tripod, so you can get used to using a good one. Then go back to using yours and say to yourself "well, it's good enough." Then go shoot a critical project and have one of the legs fail on you. No real problem - it only slipped a little bit and most of the taping went well.

Repeat Step 1, but this time spend a bit more. Let's say you spend $75 and the legs hold up well, only to have the head tip while shooting unattended. No problem, because the legs are pretty good, so you can now go out and get a new head for, say, $100. The only problem is that your tripod doesn't have a removable head.

Repeat Step 1, but this time spend a bit more. Let's say you spend $100 this time and the legs hold up well and the head's not too bad. Now you have a nice tripod and the confidence to go out and shoot some really great stuff. With the camera in your bag and tripod on your shoulder, you go out and shoot some distant subject, only to find out that using your zoom at maximum reveals all the flaws your tripod really has to offer. You can't tilt, zoom or pan smoothly at all - and it shows. After some investigating, you realize the head isn't really very good. No problem, because the legs aren't too bad, and this time you can separate the two, so you can now go out and get a new head for, say, $100.

OK, now you have a tripod with a pretty good head atop an OK set of legs. But when you stand back and look at it, you realize it's pretty silly, because the head looks way too big for those tiny legs. So you finally break down and buy a good tripod, for, say, $300. You put that other tripod along with the "rest of the story" in your closet.

It's a ridiculous thing but it happens all the time: we start out with an "entry-level" item, only to outgrow it several times and finally get what we should have purchased in the first place. So what should we have purchased in the first place? Say you shoot for a theatrical production company and you need to put up two cameras, a stationary camera to cover the entire stage and one to cover individual performers. That means you need at least one tripod, but you would like to shoot the performers with a long focal length, since the production company doesn't want the videographer near the stage. You really need two tripods. But you can't afford two really good tripods, so you have to strike a compromise. This is where you need to understand just what you are going to do with the camera, where you can skimp and where you shouldn't.

The stationary tripod really doesn't do much of anything but stand there and earn you money, but the tripod for the performers is in constant motion, because the performers are in constant motion. The stationary tripod must be steady, but, since you're not really interacting with it, the head can be pretty clumsy. That means it doesn't need to be lightweight and fast to set up and, since you're not panning and zooming, there is no need for a high-quality head. It does need to be steady, because your reputation depends on it. On the other hand, if you are moving around a theatre taping performers during a live performance, that tripod needs to be a really nice unit: lightweight, fast to set up, with a nice head for panning and zooming. As with anything else, you get what you pay for. So let's roll up our sleeves, sharpen our pencils and figure out how to get the most bang for our buck!