Hubby and I have several tripods and he even has a monopod. Now, I'd NEVER been one to use a tripod, but with my long lens (18-200mm), I've found that in low light such as early morning or early evening, I really needed one. Lisa Gordon just did an excellent article on her tripod (you can read it here: http://www.lgordonphotography.com/), and I don't even attempt to go into the detail that she did. Believe me, I went kicking and screaming toward tripod use. But, after photo after blurry photo, I finally gave in, especially when hubby set his up. I have a lightweight tripod (I have a Dolica ST 510) that has a latch for the camera, and it doesn't take me that long to set it up and take it down and I took it with me down to the Devil's Postpile, which was about a mile down and back from the shuttle stop. And, I'm finding that when I'm at 200 mm, I REALLY need a tripod. Here are some photos that I took with my tripod early July 4th, the morning we left our cabin at Twin Lakes, above Mammoth. These were taken in low morning light and there is no way they would have come out without a tripod. The light was just too low...and I had to use a longer shutter speed to take them.
