Funny thing about tripods is that the primary reason I got one was not to take long exposures, but as just a simple support so that I could be in my own pictures! Thus my choice of the Benro Travel Angel. It just needed to hold the gear.


And then I started getting into macro, and wildlife, and now I find the tripod to be really fiddly to use. Yeah, I'm kinda lazy. And not exactly possessing a lot of upper body strength to handhold superteles for the wildlife. So I'm thinking I need a monopod.


Then I started doing night photography through several local groups and now am seeing the deficiencies of using a 1.8 pound travel pod for 30 second exposures. Okay, so maybe I need a big stable tripod too. And since I still do wildlife I may as well get a gimbal head, a Better Beamer, a macro twin flash, some diffusers and reflectors, focus stacking software, a portable blind, a 2x TC, an MP-E 65mm....


It all starts to add up super fast. So much freaking crap to buy and not enough money to buy it all! (Well, I *could* buy it--it just wouldn't be *wise* to buy it.)


But still, there are those situations where nothing seems to be a good solution and you yearn for something simple...like just being able to hold the damn camera, press a button, and be done with it. Part of me wonders what any of this is actually good for. There are times when I sit back and look at this collection of beautiful RAWs I have somehow stuffed my laptop hard drive with, and the loads of money I have spent to do this, and I wonder if I have unwittingly become a member of some kind of photographic cult, like Amway for artists. I look at these people taking photos of flowers with camera phones and think..."Wait. You can just do that?"


Maybe it's time for me to step back a little bit from the edge....