Monopods

[bill937ca]

How useful are monopods for railfan photography?  Are they allowed on trains?  Generally tripods are not welcomed on railroad property, except maybe at the extreme ends of station platforms.

[keitaro]

not worth it to be hohnest.

 

plus annoying to cart about just like a tripod.

[Tecchan]

Might be useful if you have a really heavy lens, but other that that, I don't find them useful.

[keitaro]

even with a big lens it was of no use to me personally.

 

I have a canon 7d with a 70 - 200 2.8 mkII and a 28 - 300mm lens they are both large and heavy and found it annoying trying a mates monopod he bought that he also doesn't use either for same reasons.

[Hobby Dreamer]

How useful are monopods for railfan photography?

 

Hi Bill,

 

I cannot say anything about railfan photography but I grew up with film SLRs and found that tripods had 2 big uses besides supporting heavy lenses.

 

First, they made you think about your shots, which was important before the electronic age - especially with the photo software we have now to crop etc.

 

Second, they bought you some space. People would see you lining up a shot and that was useful. They would get out of your way.

 

Another advantage was low lighting conditions but that is not as big an issue today. Large lenses always let less light in etc. so with film you needed longer exposures. That's probably not a big deal anymore but sometimes a large depth of field made a photo so a tripod helped there as well.

 

A monopod is not very expensive and folds up so why not get one if you have heavy lenses, need depth of field or shoot in low light. I always had a 8" tripod in my camera bag for night shots and would use it against telephone poles or on mail boxes etc. It made a difference in the photo but was not really a hassle to carry.

 

There might just be that one photo where it would matter!

 

Rick

[Guest ___]

If you have a camera without image stabilization they are pretty useful if you are going to spend a lot of time looking through one. You're never going to see any professional covering any sports even without one. If you have IS or VR then not as useful. I had to cover a sports event last week for the wire service and had to lug around a 300 f/4 on a Nikon D3s for three and a half hours. I will never do that again without the monopod.

 

With that said, I never see railfans using them, then again most railfans don't own glass that heavy nor spend enough time with that large of glass to worry about holding that weight still for hours on end, However if you're going to be in a station, I'd find them to be a pain to use. I do not like tripods or monopods myself, and do not use them if I can get by with VR. For railway photography, I am often on the move and try to run as light as I can.

 

Tripods and monopods have their advantages and disadvantages, and like anything in photography it comes with a trade off. Note, though if you are not in Japan now and want to take one to Japan, some airlines may force it to go as checked. I have heard some fo the sports guys I know at the wire reporting TSA disseminating the monopod before forcing it to go checked as there is fear a hollowed out monopod can be used as a weapon. (Aside from being used as a blunt object, I can't imagine anyone using a monopod as a bomb or blowgun or whatever TSA thinks a monopod can be used as)

 

If you do decide on a monopod, Bogan (Manfdrotto) makes a product. All my tripods are Bogan. (both field and studio units)  Gitzo makes a great product that is incredibly lgiht weight and top notch, I'd say better than anything Manfroto makes, but hell, you'll pay for them, as they are not cheap.

[Tenorikuma]

Has anyone tried the string-and-washer trick?

[bill937ca]

Thanks for all the information and suggestions guys. 

[Bernard]

Has anyone tried the string-and-washer trick?

What is the string and washer trick?

[Tenorikuma]

You take a piece of string long enough to reach from eye level to the ground. You tie a screw to one and and a washer to the other. The screw screws into the camera base in place of a tripod, and you step on the washer, pulling the string taut. It acts like a poor-man's monopod and eliminates vertical jiggle.

[Guest ___]

Yes! OMG, people always thoguht I was nuts for suggesting this, but yeah, I use to do this back in the 90's, prior to the widespread popularity of image stabilizing. It workers really will assuming you have a washer big enough to step on that doesn't get caught up on anything. I ahd been toying with this idea for when my new rangefinder camera comes as it has no IS.

[cteno4]

Bill,

 

For photography monopods/tripods can be useful, but heavy and bulky to carry around and like aaron mentioned most lenses have some stabilization these days so not as much a worry unless you are in really low light. I havnt carted one around for years now for photography.

 

for video tripods are really really needed. the first thing that goes wrong in video is shaking and moving of the camera. even though nypd blue and homicide started used hand held till people puked, hand held is just not good for most things! the motion needs what is the action in the screen not the camera motion, just distracts from your shot. as hobbydreamer also said the tripod helps you think about framing your shot as well and this is really important with video on trains where they are coming and/or going from your frame. shooting video and still require different thinking and video requires you to think how things will move around in your frame to be really a great shot.

 

unfortunately monopods dont do a lot of good with video as you will still sway around some unless you brace it against something solid. the good thing is video cameras are getting smaller and smaller, you can get away with much lighter tripods than you use to!!!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[clem24]

In Japan, carrying around my monopod or even a tripod would've been murder... Just too heavy and cumbersome. I do usually have my Gorilla Pod (the "SLR zoom one" whichever was the biggest one) with me though. That thing has saved my a$$ so many times.

 

Having said that, my dad bought me this monopod from Hong Kong that is awesome.. It actually doubles as a light stand. It folds up to about 15" but can extend to about 4 1/2 feet. Also there's 3 legs that fold out from it so that it can act as a stand alone light stand and as a tripod!

[Rocket]

For still photography I wouldn't bother with either. For video with a small unit a monopod is useful and for a large camera a tripod is essential. I carried a monopod and two short tie down straps on one trip and was able to video with the monopod tied to a fence rail whilst I took stills with the SLR. I also found the monopod to be a good aid in steadying the video camera and in the collapsed position it makes a nice hand hold for panning. On my recent but shaky trip to Japan I carried a 4kg tripod to hold my 3kg camera. A good monopod weighs very little and you won't even notice it. A look at a few videos on the net will reveal all. For video you absolutely must have something better than a steady hand once that lens gets cranked out towards the long end.

[SONIC883_de]

I use a monopod and ricebag. Is a light weight equipment that can help much with longer lenses.

 

On brigdes, walls and/or fences I use the ricebag. It is fast to handle and take much of the shaking. The rest will do the shake reduction

 

My wooden tripod (do you know Berlebach?) is alway by my side. I use is not only as a normal monopod, I use it as a balance weight. I have a Pentax K-x and in some moments the camera is to lightweight

[scott]

It's odd--I thought I had posted here before, but apparently not.

 

I tried a monopod, but it was impractical. I usually travel with two cameras, and while I can carry one or set one up on a tripod, the monopod has the annoyance of the tripod without the full stability. That said, I know they're useful for sports photos with heavy lenses, but the don't work for me.

 

We recently went to Costa Rica, and I had a small, light camera on a tripod (for low-light landscapes and forest scenes) and a camera with a heavier (but IS) lens that never went on a tripod--I needed to move it quickly for wildlife. A monopod would't have helped either one.