4 Photography Tips to Shoot Without a Tripod

When you think about a professional photographer, you might think of this:

Credit: Shawn Academy

And indeed, it’s the first result that pops out when you Google “professional photographer”. We often associate professional photography with tripods. But do you really need one? And how can you take great photos without using a tripod?

How to Shoot Without a Tripod

Tripods are used for a variety of situations, and they often come in very handy. They offer stabilization, and it’s useful for:

• taking panoramas
• shooting in low-light environment
• capturing long exposures

One of the most recurring trouble photographers struggle with is image sharpness. One of the main factor causing blur on an image is camera shake. If your shutter speed is too slow, your camera will take longer to take a picture; and if it’s too long, the natural body shakes you have will result in a blurry image.

When shooting hand held, the general rule of thumb to get sharp images is: don’t go any lower than 1/30 for your shutter speed, if you have a good shooting position, or 1/60 otherwise. (Results may vary depending on your camera, lens, and image stabilization built in some lenses.)

You also need to pay attention to your focal length (the distance between the lens and the image sensor). The shutter speed denominator should remain higher or a least equal to your focal length.

• for a 50mm lens, you should shoot no slower than 1/50
• for a 200mm lens, you should shoot no slower than 1/200

So, how do you achieve fast enough shutter speeds to get sharp images?
And if you can’t, how can you pull out a successful shot without a tripod?

1 – Increase your shutter speed

To achieve a correctly exposed image, you can tweak 3 settings: Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO

If your shutter speed is too slow, you can change your camera settings for Aperture and ISO to try to get a faster shutter speed.

To get a faster shutter speed:

• use a larger aperture: i.e choose a smaller f-stop. If you’re at f/8, try f/4 for example
• use an higher ISO number: if you’re at ISO 200, try ISO 800

Changing your aperture and ISO will allow you to have a faster shutter speed, and thus getting a sharp image without using a tripod.

2 – Use post processing for panoramas

When taking panoramas, having a tripod or a monopod helps to ensure all the shots composing the final panoramas are levelled.

However, you can get away with shooting your panoramas handheld with the power of today’s editing softwares, namely panorama merge in Lightroom and photomerge in Photoshop, that will automatically adjust your shots to create a nice panorama.

Of course using a tripod or a monopod will guarantee you end up with the shot you want, but if you don’t have one you’ll be ok using softwares.

3 – Use external light

When shooting in low-light environment, it’s often challenging to get sharp pictures, simply because the light, or the lack thereof, forces you/your camera to use a slow shutter speed. Even by using maximum aperture and high ISO, you won’t get satisfactory results (high ISO brings noise, and that can kill a picture).

Therefore, if you can’t get a fast enough shutter speed to get a sharp picture, you can try using external sources of light to brighten up the scenes, thus increasing the exposure and allowing you to use a faster shutter speed.

Sources of light you can use:

• your phone flash
• your built-in camera flash
• flashlights
• anything that produces light

4 – Use your environment

Finally, if there’s no way you can increase your shutter speed enough to get a sharp shot without a tripod, or if you want to shoot long exposure, you can use your environment to help give you the stability you need.

You can try to lean back against a wall, a pole, a rock, or even the floor, to give you extra stability when you shoot. But the best way is simply to put down your camera on something solid.

1. Find a spot where you can lay down your camera: a ledge, a rock, a car, …
2. Put down your camera, and use live view to adjust your composition
3. Take the shot with 100% stability
4. Enjoy a sharp image

So here you go, the 4 photography tips to shoot without a tripod.

Now, the next time you forget your tripod or simply don’t have one, you’ll know how to deal with the situation!