Do you know the full potential of your tripod? If you're not sure, here's how you can tell if you do or not. Take a look at your tripod—do you see a jib, a handheld camera stabilizer, and a SnorriCam rig? If you don't, don't feel bad; envisioning the cinematic possibilities of such an unglamorous piece of gear can be a challenge, but over at Film Riot, Ryan Connolly and his team took up that challenge and came up with eight clever ways to utilize your tripod to make your cinematography more smoother and more creative.

You may have heard of a few of these ideas, especially the rubber band trick, but a lot of these are (hopefully) most likely new to a lot of you. 

  • Smoother pans: Use a rubber band for smoother pans
  • Smoother tilts: Loosen the tilt lock and let gravity give you smoother tilts
  • Handheld tripod stabilizer: Shorten the center column of your tripod and extend the legs for a decent handheld camera stabilizer
  • Low angles: Turn that tripod stabilizer upside down to get some sweet low-angle shots
  • DIY SnorriCam: Turn your tripod into a SnorriCam rig by putting the legs against your waist while holding the center column
  • Tripod dolly: Shorten one leg of your tripod and tilt to create a sweet tripod dolly
  • Tripod jib: Turn that tripod dolly into a jib by extending the legs and stabilizing them with sandbags
  • Top Down shots: Strap your tripod on the top step of a ladder and point your camera down
  • "Jump Over" shots: Secure your tripod on top of a couple apple boxes and pan when your subject jumps over the camera

What are some other cool tricks you can pull off with a tripod? Let us know down in the comments.

Source: Film Riot

tripodsCamera Stabilization
Cinematography & Cameras