7
Mounting the Smartphone
Bracket on a Tripod
Mounting the smartphone bracket itself
on a standard-size or mini tripod can
be useful for taking family or group
portraits (where you want to be in
the picture too), self-portraits, or just
wide-field terrestrial shots with your
smartphone on a steady platform.
Just thread the tripod’s ¼"-20 post into
the center socket on the bottom of the
smartphone bracket (
Figure 9).
What to Photograph with the
SteadyPix Pro
Now that you have set up the
SteadyPix Pro with your camera or
smartphone and telescope or spotting
scope, the only question remaining is
“What can I photograph?” We have a
few suggestions for you:
Terrestrial Photography
With literally millions of objects to
photograph on earth, there are only
a few tips we can give for using
the SteadyPix Pro for terrestrial
photography. One is to consider using
a telescope with an Alt/Az (short for
altitude/azimuth) mount on a sturdy
tripod. An Alt/Az mount will allow
simple up/down, left/right motions
of the telescope so that you can
easily adjust and aim the camera.
Equatorial mounts (mounts designed
to track the movement of stars in the
sky) are not recommended, as they
will be needlessly heavy due to the
counterweight, and their ability to track
celestial objects is of no use when
photographing an object like a bird’s
nest. In fact it will likely get in the way.
Remember that objects viewed through
certain types of telescopes will be oriented backwards, upside-down, or both so
some telescopes may not be suitable for terrestrial photography.
Figure 8.
The SteadyPix Pro is shown
attached to a photo tripod via the ¼”-20
socket in the SteadyPix’s foot. A monocular
is held in the eyepiece clamp.
Figure 9.
The smartphone bracket can be
attached directly to a photo tripod’s ¼”-20
post.
