Monopod for Macro Photography

There’s not always time for tripods – Philip Dunn used a makeshift monopod to capture the shifting light and get a needle sharp photograph

The desire to capture photographs never leaves you – at least it has never left me. Even after 45 years in the profession, I still love taking pictures, and the urge to capture images can grip me at any time when I see something that attracts my eye.

The other evening I was walking down the garden after a heavy rain shower. The low sun was peeping though a slot in the clouds and I noticed it was spot lighting the water drops of a plant at the side of the garden path. The light was gorgeous and the subject attractive – each drop of water was like a jewel, and the hairy surface of the leaf was creating the most extraordinary patterns in the reflections.

I simply had to photograph those leaves. The light would not last more than a couple of minutes before it clouded over – just enough time to take a picture or two. Ideally I would like to have set up the camera on a tripod, but their was no time for that.

Instead, I found a rectangular-shaped wooden stick a couple of feet long in the garden shed and used that as a makeshift monopod.

When moving in as close as this – macro photography – it is important to remember that your depth of field is very limited indeed. The slightest movement towards or away from the subject after the autofocus has locked on it will almost certainly throw the subject out of focus.

The trick with my makeshift wooden monopod was to rest the camera firmly against the side of the wooden stick – but I made sure that the ‘leg’ of the stick pointed slightly forward towards the subject. This helped prevent camera movement fore and aft – so throwing the subject out of focus.

Of course, resting the camera against the wooden monopod also helped prevent camera shake.

The result was a needle sharp image.

I was carrying my little Canon G9, which I set on Macro mode.
I put the camera on Aperture priority at f5.6 – this gave me a shutter speed of 1/100sec
–1/3 Exposure Compensation
ISO 80

The lower picture shows how I simply rested the camera against my wooden ‘monopod’ – but notice that the leg of the stick is pointing slightly forward to help prevent fore and aft movement