Using camera tripods will help you maintain smooth, clear footage for your audience. However, the tripod doesn’t do all the work itself—you must take a precise and educated approach to tripod usage if you want to make the most of its stability. Improve your camera skills today using these tips for capturing smooth tripod shots for various productions.
Use Fluid Head Tripods
Fluid head tripods utilize a pan and tilt functionality with excellent smoothness because of the fluid chamber from which they get their name. The fluid provides resistance to the camera motions to generate smoother, less erratic movement. This ability to dampen movement makes fluid head tripods a must-have for professional productions where avoiding vibrations in-frame is critical. You can browse the professional video tripods at Ikan to find many options with fluid head implementation.
Approach Inclines Carefully
One of the basic methods for getting smooth tripod shots is placing the legs on a flat surface, but that doesn’t always have to be the case. You can sometimes successfully place the tripod on an incline for filming. One way to ensure success when shooting on an incline is to position the tripod with two legs stretched forwards. That way, you can help the tripod hold your camera more balanced and stable.
Fully Extend the Legs
Our final tip for capturing smooth tripod shots is an easy one to overlook—make sure your tripod legs are fully extended. The legs may look fully extended, but looks can be deceiving. Of course, we don’t mean fully extended in terms of height. Instead, this refers to how spread apart the legs are from one another. Double-check before filming that you’ve spread the legs as far as they can be to provide proper support. Now that you have this information in your creative toolbelt, you can make your tripod shots look as smooth and professional as possible.