A tripod will make a significant improvement to the sharpness of many images. Generally a tripod will comprise two main parts, the main part comprising the three legs and the upper part comprising the head to allow movement of the camera.
A tripod is very usefull in obtaining sharp landscape images and also very usefull when using long lenses or when the camera is used with very long shutter speeds.
Some applications where tripods are very useful are as follows:
- Long telephoto lenses, 300-500mm
- Macro or close up photography
- Fireworks
- Night scenes
- Landscapes
- Light
- Lightning
- Portrait, to enable you to direct the subject
- Any exposures from 1/60 second or longer
Having three legs on a tripod gives it very good stability, however any tripod with a centre column raised to its maximum height will add instability to the setup. Try to keep the centre column raised to a maximum of around 1/4 of the maximum height, otherwise it may become less stable.