The Best Way to Carry Your Tripod

If you’re just start­ing out with a tri­pod, you may not have con­sid­ered the best way to carry it. Spend some time lug­ging it around and you’ll soon appre­ci­ate a min­i­mal­ist approach.

My friend Denise is doing more night pho­tog­ra­phy lately, so we ven­tured out to Walt Dis­ney World’s Magic King­dom last night to get a lit­tle prac­tice. Right off the bat, it was appar­ent that we had very dif­fer­ent strate­gies for approach­ing an evening of night photography.

Denise was pre­pared. She had her tri­pod in a tri­pod carry bag and then another bag for her Nikon D800 with two lenses. I took a min­i­mal­ist approach using only one lens on my Nikon D800 mounted on the ball­head of my tri­pod, which I car­ried using a sim­ple tri­pod strap.

Why do these dif­fer­ences mat­ter? I like to think of it as the num­ber of steps you have to take to get a shot. The first step we encoun­tered was hav­ing to stop by the bag search along with forty mil­lion other tourists so the Dis­ney Secu­rity folks could inspect Denise’s two bags. When I’m alone using the tri­pod strap, I just walk inside and bypass the bag inspec­tion. No bags, no waiting.

We found our first loca­tion and setup to take some shots. That meant she took her tri­pod out of one bag and a cam­era out of the other bag. I unclipped a quick release strap. When that shot was done, every­thing reversed. She put her tri­pod back in its bag and cam­era back in another one. I clicked the quick release strap.

While we were shoot­ing, she also had to keep an eye on those bags. There are plenty of other folks around Dis­ney and they really aren’t watch­ing where they’re going, so they’ll step on or trip over those bags on the ground. Just mov­ing her tri­pod from one spot to another meant mov­ing the bags around, too. More steps.

After a night of going from one scene to another, she was sick of that damn bag. She started car­ry­ing her trip in one hand and the bags in the other — fully loaded down.

Why a Tri­pod Strap is the Best Way to Carry Your Tripod

I use an OP/TECH¤USA Tri­pod Strap (Black) [B&H Link]. It’s pretty sim­ple. There are quick release clamps for the top by the ball­head and the bot­tom legs. I never need to release the top quick release, just the bot­tom ones on the legs.

The strap itself is very com­fort­able and has a wide pad with some stretch in it to expand the load. There’s no need to take my gear apart when it’s time to move. I just col­lapse the legs and attach the quick release to the bot­tom. It’s very secure. I’ve never had any prob­lem with the strap giv­ing out.

Although it could be tempt­ing to sling your tri­pod over your back like a rifle, I pre­fer car­ry­ing it under my arm and next to my body, with the cam­era on the ball­head right in front of me. I like to keep an eye on my cam­era and I also find that the weight dis­tri­b­u­tion works bet­ter slung under instead of behind my back.

It’s much eas­ier to swing the tri­pod out of the way of folks pass­ing near you under your arm. Another advan­tage I hope you don’t need is to help you stop a fall. It’s only hap­pened to me once, but I lost my foot­ing and was able to avoid smash­ing my face by quickly putting the tri­pod out in front of me. Had it been behind my back, it would have been of no help.

The Enchanted Tiki Room

One of our early stops of the evening was in Adver­ture­land at the Enchanted Tiki Room. I’d tell you that this is a crowded place, but come on — every place at Dis­ney World is crowded.