I took a number of photographs a little after midnight last night for the "Late Night" category challenge, and spent much of my time fighting with my tripod (a Velbon 50 that I've had for many years), trying to get the angle just right, or the stability, or trying to contort myself to see through a camera angled upwards on a tripod that's just too short unless it's fully extended... in which case you can kiss the vibration resistance goodbye.

Tonight, I have been doing the image editing of those photographs. The result is a sudden hole in my wallet, as I burned a thousand dollars on a new Gitzo tripod and Acratech head after tearing my hair out in frustration. None of the shots came out perfectly level; that can be fixed in these shots, since they aren't going to be stitched together, but that would have killed a panorama shot. All but two of my lone lamp shots suffer from motion blur where either the tripod or its quick-release system was unable to keep the camera from rotating slightly under the weight of the lens. That can't be completely corrected at all, though Focus Magic managed a remarkable compensation on one shot. The rest were hopeless. Out of a dozen shots intended to catch the lamp with different amounts of light and speed, only three were in survivable condition, and I'm not sure that motion blur compensation is a legal edit for Basic Editing, so that leaves me with two: a 6-second exposure and an 8-second exposure.

Not a whole lot of variety there.

On the lit porch shots, same thing. Only three shots survived, though at least I got a small range of exposures out of it.

I've only done a casual first pass on the lamp-and-roof shots, but I've discarded a few already. Deadline is tomorrow on all of these. I don't have the time to shoot again, even if I found the same conditions.

I'm not really supposed to be spending that much money on toys right now. It's just absolutely heartbreaking to see a night's work ruined by the flaws of a single piece of equipment, however, and I couldn't stand it happening again. So now I'm significantly poorer, but from the specifications and review, I will soon have the best of breed as far as lightweight tripods go. I'm picking up the Gitzo 1228LVL (chosen over the 1227 version because with the head attached the 1228 should just barely fit in my suitcase, and the 1227 won't) and the Acratech "Ultimate Ballhead" to go with it, along with plates for my camera with grip and a universal plate for Lynne's spotting scope. I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm eventually going to miss a pan-and-tilt tripod system and a geared center column, but I also suspect that I'm going to miss them only rarely, and not very much. If I get desperate, a picking up a second pan-and-tilt head won't cost me very much extra, and if there is sufficient control on the head, you don't need high precision on the column. Generally, you just want to leave the column almost fully retracted, anyway. Total height with the column fully retracted will be just above 56 inches, which I've measured against my Velbon with the column up to be almost exactly eye level with the eyepiece of my camera mounted horizontally. This means that it's going to be a couple inches on the short side for aiming up 45 degrees, something I hope I don't have to do very often, but that's a good nine inches higher than on the Velbon. Going to the 1227LVL would have given me a little less than three inches of extra height, at the cost of being four inches longer (the length of the entire head attachment!) folded.

I measured that against my suitcase, camera bags, and backpack, waffled a bit, and then went with the smaller one. A tripod only helps your shots when it isn't too inconvienient to bring at all.

But back to editing. I want the best versions ready for final analysis tonight.

Update: The lamp-and-roof shots seem to have been mostly ruined by a lack of dynamic range and flaring, which are body/lens issues, not tripod issues. These were still the most annoying shots to take, however, since they were angled upwards. It's going to be one of those or one of the lone lamp shots, however, since the porch shots (which originally drew my eye) look boring in comparison.