Hands-On Photography Episode 129 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show. 

Ant Pruitt  (00:00):
Today, we're Hands-On Photography and I get some emails from you folks quite regularly. And boy, I, I always appreciate that. Well, today I have two emails that I want to discuss, and there's a, a bit of a same theme with them. We're gonna talk about a piece of hardware that you're gonna need in your photography world or videography world. And quite frankly, I need you to spend a little bit of money. Don't cheap out on this. All right, y'all stay tuned.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
This is TWiT.

Ant Pruitt  (00:27):
This episode of Hands-On Photography is brought to you by hover. Whether you're a developer photographer or small business, hover has something for you to expand your projects and get the visibility you want. Go to hover.com/to get 10% off your first purchase of any domain extension for the entire first year.

Ant Pruitt  (00:56):
Hey, what's going on, everybody. I am Ant Pruitt, and this is Hands-On Photography here on TWiT TV. Hope y'all are doing well. I am unbelievable as always today. I am going to go through some of your email feedback because that's what I like to do. I like to share different tips, some tricks that's gonna help make you a better photographer and a better post processor, but I'd also like to check out some of your feedback that can help you out as well. So before we get into that, I wanna say welcome to all of our brand new listeners and brand new subscribers. Thank you for hopping on in here and checking out the show. Go ahead and continue to share the show out with the other folks to help grow this Hands-On Photography community. We are available on all of the podcast platforms, such as apple podcasts and Spotify and whatever the heck Google is using.

Ant Pruitt  (01:44):
You can see all of that information over on our website, twit.tv/hop that switch.tv/p for Hands-On Photography. All description options are there as well as our YouTube channel is there as well. So you can subscribe on YouTube and give us a like over there as well. All right, so now let's go ahead and get into this week's show without further ado. So I'm going to pull up the first email and this one comes from Andrew and it says, hi aunt. I'm a regular listener since day one and also a Club TWiT member. Woo. Thank you so much for that from day one and a Club TWiT member. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for that. Since almost the beginning of that, too hoping you can help me by recommending a tripod and iPhone attachment device, other than the small JBI gorilla pod.

Ant Pruitt  (02:36):
I am planning to use my iPhone to film and broadcast events. I do have a gum that I use with a tripod attachment on it, but I use the gum on an extension for my wheelchair. I'm looking for a tripod that stands up on its own, almost a setup and forget type of thing. I also need it to be portable foldable. So it's easy to travel with. I'm looking forward to hearing your recommendation and PS, you can use this question on the show. If you feel other listeners slash Watchers will benefit from the answer. Of course I do. Thank you so much for that, sir. What's funny is I got your email and then another one came in right after that one. So let me see, I'll pull that one up here too, cuz I think you you're gonna sense a theme folks. This one comes from Adam and it reads

Ant Pruitt  (03:30):
Hello Ant. I have a question for you. So maybe you'd be able to point me in the right direction. I just got me a Sigma one 50 to 600 millimeter zoom lens. Woo. I know that lens and it is awesome. I have only one tripod, so I tried to use my lens on it and ended up having my camera and lens fall to the ground. Yikes. Thankfully my lens is still in perfect condition, but my camera took a beating and ended up having to get it fixed. I'm using a Canon S rebel T six. I, I know that camera love it. That I have had for four years now. I'm looking for some recommendations on some tripods that will hold my lens securely. I'm just learning how to use this lens. So I've had my camera settings on AV or automatic until I get comfortable with it.

Ant Pruitt  (04:18):
I've only gotten to use it about three times since I got my camera back from being repaired. Here are some pictures that I've taken with my camera and my new lens. Feel free to show them on the show. All right. So yeah, he sent in these photos. They're quite cool. And there's some little birds look like, I don't know what these birds are. But they're all out in the water. They're very pretty and you definitely need a long lens to get this type of framing on 'em so nicely done. Mr. Adam, sorry to hear about your, your tripod falling over and your camera taking a beating. That's Ugh, boy, that, that makes my heart sink a little bit. Sorry about that. But yeah, today's topic is tripods. So I've spoken about tripods before on the network. Not necessarily on hop, but on other shows here on TWiT TV and folks, there's one da gum rule about tripods that I try to preach to people that ask me and that rule is buy once.

Ant Pruitt  (05:23):
<Laugh> just, just buy a tripod one time because if you just start buying cheap, you're gonna be buying several tripods over an extended amount of time and it ends up just being the same amount of money spent on just buying a good one for one time. Okay. I hope that makes sense. All right. For example, if you go to say the Walmarts of the world, Walmart's gonna have photography tripods in there and they'll even have some with video heads on 'em and so forth and, and, and yeah, they'll work. They're fine. And those things will cost you roughly 30 to $40 us. Okay. But those are not going to last. They will not take a beating. The legs are gonna get flimsy on them. And for the most part, if you're doing something like a long exposures, you're gonna get camera shake because they're not really stur.

Ant Pruitt  (06:14):
They're just good enough to hold a, a camera up on them. So you don't have to touch 'em. But as far as the loan game on them, I cannot recommend them. So I've always told people if you're gonna buy a tripod, try to spend at the very least $60 at least that and even that's pushing it, you know, you can go to amazon.com and just search for tripods, and you're gonna get a ton of them in there from Amazon basics. Don't buy 'em you'll see a bunch of weird name brands that may look okay. If again, if it's under that $60 range, don't even waste your time with it. Some of my recommendations for tripods include the, the folks at K and F they're usually more on the less expensive side, but they also have pretty good quality K and F concepts.

Ant Pruitt  (07:07):
I believe. They have a bunch of them in there. They even have some that are good for doing top down shots, where they give you extension tubes and things like that. And they, they work really well. I've played with a couple of them. I don't own 'em anymore. But they were, they were totally fine. And serviceable now, granted, they're not gonna be able to work in extreme conditions. Like if you're out and about on a hike or something like that and salt water and things like that, I wouldn't recommend 'em. You need something. That's gonna be able to take a bit more of a beating. And that's just not that price point. If you wanted to start getting into something that's really just gonna last, you have to consider a couple different classifications of tripods. You have your travel tripods and you have your, your studio tripods, the travel tripods are usually something that's a little bit more lightweight, but the ones that are really, really good are lightweight and made of some pretty expensive materials like aluminum of carbon fiber.

Ant Pruitt  (08:08):
So that means the price is going to go up. So they're gonna remain to be something light that you can pack around and it not necessarily kill your back while you're carrying it. But they're also able to take a beating. Peak design has one that's really, really popular. But it's expensive. It's quite pricey. Their travel tripod is quite pricey. Didn't you have the likes of Ben row, Ben row B E N R O have a bunch of different tripod options. Personally me, I like to stick with the folks set men photo or Ben row just because of the price point they've been around forever and their quality stands up. You know, the tripod that I'm looking at right now, that's holding my camera to shoot. This is a Ben tripod. My day to day tripod for shooting. Photography is a man photo tripod.

Ant Pruitt  (08:58):
It's not a travel tripod. It's a studio, beefy, sturdy tripod, but I actually use it for travel. I carry it with me when I go out on photo walks and things like that, because I know it's gonna stand up to being knocked over and things like that. I've had it at the beach and salt water has gotten on it and I had to clean it out and put it back together. And it's been totally fine, like nothing ever happened to it. But I paid a little bit more for that tripod because I didn't want to keep buying tripods that particular tripod. I think mine is a, a one 90 X or something like that from Enro. Highly recommend it. Most people don't want it because it's quote unquote heavy well to each his own. I'd much rather have that heavier one. That's gonna take a beating that I don't have to worry about it.

Ant Pruitt  (09:46):
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Ant Pruitt  (10:51):
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Ant Pruitt  (11:46):
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Ant Pruitt  (12:48):
And we thank hover for their support of my show and for supporting all of us here at twit. Now the previous emailer was asking about something more so for the mobile phone Moveo is something that I've used in the past. And they have this little device called the P R one and it attaches to your smartphones. But what I like about it, it uses a bit of a ratcheting mechanism. So you can tighten down on the, on the smartphone and not necessarily just use some type of spring clamp this way. You know, your smartphone is gonna be secure and the bottom of it has a quarter 20 thread on it. So you can attach a tripod plate to the bottom of it, such as like an arc Swiss type, which is a pretty common standard for tripod plates and then attach it to any standard tripod that you want with that.

Ant Pruitt  (13:42):
I would take the Moveo PR one and pair it up with one of these Ben row tripods that are out there. They have a bunch of them. I'm gonna put some links in the show notes. There's so many different ones that are offered, but Ben row tends to be the way that I would lean when it comes to doing mobile photography or on the go cuz they're they have, they have travel tripods, they have studio tripods, but their travel tripods tend to be at a, a lower price point than the likes of a Enro, but they're not skimping out on the quality. So I will stick a few models in the show notes. I don't know 'em right off the top of my head, but I'll stick 'em in the show notes and there'll be affiliate links of course, to help support the show.

Ant Pruitt  (14:24):
And you can check those out there, but again, think about spending at least 60 bucks. If you're just trying to buy a tripod quickly folks, but I more so recommend spend about a hundred dollars right out the gate. You're gonna get much better quality with those tripods that are gonna be mobile, take a beating and be around for several years for you to use down the road. Okay. All right. So that is gonna do it for this week's episode. I hope that's been quite helpful. Thank you for sending in those emails. As I've said before, you can always send your, your feedback, comments, image, critique, image, critiques, cuz I can speak today. Questions, just send those emails to hop@twit.tv, just as these two gentlemen did again as hop twit TV. And I try to answer them as soon as I can. I get quite a few emails in there.

Ant Pruitt  (15:18):
So I have a bit of a cue built up sometimes. And if you have images that you would like mentioned on the show or, or have no problem mentioned on the show and make sure you say that in the email, I don't wanna just show your images in the show without your consent. And honestly, I don't even want to pull up your email like these gentlemen without your consent this well. So thank you all so much for continuing to support the show and continuing to write in, go ahead and do me a favor and follow me over on Instagram. I am ant underscore pruitt on Instagram. Let's get that follower number up over there. I really do appreciate that and continue to tell folks about the show to TV slash H O P for Hands-On Photography. And if you're able to leave a rating and review on apple podcast, it does help. I've gotten a few reviews in here recently that were just so kind and warm in my heart. I really do appreciate that. Y'all shout out to my man, Mr. Victor for making me look and sound good each and every week. And yeah, that's it. I will talk to y'all next week here on the network, continue to like share subscribe and all of that good stuff and safely create and dominate. Y'all take care.

Leo Laporte (16:35):
Listeners of this program, get an ad free version. If they're members of club TWI $7 a month gives you ad free versions of all of our shows plus membership in the club, TWI discord, a great clubhouse for twit listeners and finally the twit plus feed with shows like Stacey's book club, the untitled Linux show the Giz Fizz and more go to twit.tv/club TWiT. And thanks for your support.