Tripod or No Tripod?

Water Plants, Historical Park of Sukhothai

Saturday, June 2, 2012: Historical Park of Sukhothai - Northern Part

During my last teaching job in Kunming, China last year in 2011, I finally bought the Manfrotto 055CXPRO3 tripod and I got the 322RC2 Grip Action ballhead to go along with it. It was more or less the only decent Manfrotto ballhead I could get at any of the camera stores in Kunming, but I am somehow eager to replace it with a different ballhead. The 322RC2 is just a headache when you want to finetune a camera position as there is quite some friction.

I have had the tripod in my backpack since I left Vienna on March 13 as I want to push myself into using it more. Yesterday, on June 2, I went back to the Historical Park of Sukhothai and really gave my tripod a good workout. Apart from being able to bracket photos properly for HDR-experiments, the sharpness one gets, is truly amazing.

I took the above photo using the tripod and although there was a slight breeze, I think I am convinced to stick to it when doing landscape photography.

Here is a detail of a Buddha statue I took with my long 70-300 lens.

Buddha Detail at Wat Mae Chon, Historical Park of Sukhothai