| | | Ron~
I shoot handheld with the Nikon P900 all the time, but I've used large cameras handheld for years.
When doing the Moon photos, I do like to rest the camera on something if convenient -- sometimes the top of the side mirror on my van, top of the barbecue, etc.. Some people who do wildlife photography from their vehicles -- using them as a blind for shooting bird photos from roadsides -- put a bean-bag or similar on the door frame. I've tried it and it works well too.
With the Moon, I usually frame the moon so that it is a bit toward the bottom of the LCD, snap the photo, and by the time the 2 second delay happens and the shutter clicks, the moon is just about centered. It's just the way that i hold the camera -- it drifts a little but not that much. I have a Slik tripod -- never use it -- but it was for my Nikon field scope -- a pretty big scope. It wasn't all that expensive and is called a "sport tripod" as it is light but strong and made for taking out into the field. Has both rubber feet and pointy steel things that you can dial out to dig in on certain terrain.
The whole thing of handheld vs. tripod is a personal thing. A lot of nature photographers do handheld because you miss a lot of good shots setting up with a tripod. Also, when shooting things close to the ground, no possible -- or following an insect through some plants to get a good angle. The image stabilization is so remarkable on all the new gear that it's all very forgiving. We are lucky to have such reasonably priced but technologically advanced equipment available to us these days.
~croc |
|
