Gadget Corner: Gitzo G2220 Tripod

By Patty Hankins and Bill Lawrence

Now that we’ve talked about playing with depth of field to get emphasize a particular flower, we thought we would talk a bit about our “flower tripod”, a Gitzo G2220 tripod. Getting the right angle on a flower often involves getting the camera near the ground, and often can include getting the camera at an odd angle out over a flower. We’ve found this tripod to be very useful for close-ups of flowers and other macro photographs. The center column can be tilted out an angle so that the camera can be brought out over the flower and angled down. A tripod can be helpful in small depth-of-field macro photography (you wouldn’t believe how easy it is to move an inch or so between focusing and pushing a shutter button when you’re crouched down trying to handhold your camera over a flower), and this tripod will let us catch the subject from a number of different angles. It will also extend out to act as a typical full size tripod. If you want a tripod to use for macro photography in addition to regular photography, we can highly recommend this one. You can see some photos of the tripod below.

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Below is a photo of our Gitzo G2220 tripod (from a previous article) showing the tripod set low to the ground, in a position to shoot a flower or other low object from the side.  The center column can be tilted and spun around to get the best position.

This photo shows how the tripod can be used to shoot downward to get the view of a flower from above.  As you can see, it is a very flexible tripod, though Patty sometimes gets strange looks when she sets up her tripod at unusual angles!