Here is a real life example, showing why photography is still (in spite of the digital revolution) an expensive business. The case in point: My wife, the ultratalented food-photographer Kelly Cline, needed a better way to do overhead shots. You know the kind. Straight down onto a plate of food, so it almost seems like you're sitting at the table, looking at your meal.
Up until recently, she used to do this handheld, which obviously is not very practical. She did have a light-weight tripod, but it wouldn't position the camera directly above the subject. So, she went out and got a boom arm ($79), which attaches to the top of the tripod to hang over the shooting table. But even though the boom arm is made for all models, it was an ill fit. Between the tripod and the boom, a number of adapters had to be added and adjusted, and it slowed down the shoot too much. So, off she went to get a new and heavier tripod of the same brand as the boom arm.
She ended up buying a tripod ($189) that allows the center pole to lay down and act as a boom as well, giving her the option to make an L-shaped boom over her table by combining the two boom arms. This would allow for more room to do last minute styling and lighting adjustments. Finally, she was ready to start shooting. Or so she thought.
At the end of the boom, she was still using the head that came with her original tripod. But when she mounted her DSLR, complete with a nice, heavy lens, the cheap tripod head simply unthreaded under the weight. So off she went yet again, to buy a ball head ($149) that would hold the weight and stay in place. With tax, the adapters needed for the first setup and all the extra parts that followed, she ended up paying close to $500, just so she can take the overhead shots, she's been wanting to.
Could she have done it cheaper? No doubt about it. She tried to at first, but all it did was cause frustration, delay and more trips to the local camera store. She decided that going cheap just wasn't worth the hassle. Now she has a top of the line tripod setup, and the entire household is hoping that her upcoming series of photos will sell well enough to make us that money back soon. After all, my birthday is coming up next week.
Rasmus Rasmussen is on loan from iStockphoto, where he is part of the image inspection team.
