Tabletop tripod as a grip when tremor or illness interferes with steady exposure

[Richard G]

In a recent illness my innate tremor, which used to always miraculously disappear with the Leica at my eye, is now a bother. For some time, since I bought the large Leica ballhead, over forty years since having the small ballhead, I have been using the Leitz tabletop tripod as a grip of sorts. I've used it as a chest pod of course, and even a thigh pod, but my recent use is with the legs of the tripod collapsed one on top of the other, and angled slightly towards me on the right. I carry the camera by the main column of the ballhead and take shots holding it the same way, left elbow raised for portrait and in landscape the tip of the legs into my right cubital fossa (elbow crease) for even more stability.

The advantage of this is the greater weight, the more contact with the left hand and the stabilisation with both upper limbs contacting the tripod, even while controlling the shutter button +/- advance lever with the right hand.

The downside is the also the greater weight, and less easy quick shots, and more obvious use of a camera. I missed a really terrific shot of the elderly rowers returning to the boat landing this morning. I could have done it and should have. I think I now realise medication side effect is the cause of my slight unsteadiness today, perhaps the antibiotics. Or last night's paracetamol, which is alarmingly sedative in me.

Anyway, this device is very confidence-giving and could be the difference between not taking a camera with you when you feel a bit off or, worse, not going out at all.

 

[CMur12]

Richard, I, too, have a bit of a tremor in my hands, and I have used a TLR on a tripod as my main solution.

Like you, I have found that added weight in the camera and lens, adds some stability. IBIS (in-body image stabilization) and OIS (optical image stabilization) are also very helpful.

I'm trying to visualize what you are doing with the tabletop tripod, as that could be helpful to me, also. What does it have to do with the large Leica ballhead and the small Leica ballhead? Thanks.

- Murray

 

[Richard G]

The small ballhead I found great for chest pod shots and shots off walls etc. And what I am proposing might work with it, but not as well as the whole apparatus would be sitting higher, the column of the ballhead so much shorter. I've done it and it is better than the camera alone.

The large ballhead is like a large weighty column below the tripod bush. It alone might do, minus the tripod. But the tripod adds more weight and I was pleased to discover the anchor of the tripod not just beneath the baseplate, with my hand lower and closer to my chest, but the tripod leg tips nestling in the crook of my right elbow, further stabilising things.

In portrait orientation, with the same set up, using my forehead to steady the camera, I would usually have my left hand quite high, possibly worsening tremor, but with the tripod arrangement, unaltered, I have my hand only so high as the centred tripod bush, with the legs contacting my left forearm, giving further stability. It is actually more than just geometric stability in fact. I'll address that a little more below.*

I have done this with the M6 and despite the different tripod bush location, if feels much the same.

*Tremor and dystonia, such as the golfer's yips and other 'craft' dystonias (musicians in particular, violinists and cellists, and pianists and even oboists and flautists), are a motor phenomenon, but sensory inout is far from irrelevant. Writer's cramp and bad putting can both be ameliorated by using a range of different instruments in circulation, different putters with different shaped heads and different grips and even different putters within the same brand and model. The same pen with a different nib, even one said to be the same can all make a difference.

So what I have in using the above camera tripod set up is a very different disposition of the left hand and arm in particular, itself a different feeling, with forearm/elbow contact on the right in landscape, also a new and different feeling when taking a photograph, and forearm contact on the left in portrait orientation with the left arm in a much more relaxed position than portrait shots with left hand high. The different contacts with the anatomy, the left hand grasping a round mass instead of the flat body of a camera, requiring a high bent wrist, and with the right forearm, stroked by the tripod legs, all very different sensory inputs, quieting the rogue motor activity. That's why I say the mere geometry is only part of it.

Patients with dystonia spontaneously learn to gently stroke the skin of their arm or face to suppress a sustained dystonic impulse: this is called the geste antagonistique. This susceptibility of dystonia to specific and even less specific sensory input, can be deliberately exploited in treatment of dystonia.

 

[Doug A]

I'm going to give my Leica tabletop tripod and large ballhead a try as a grip as described above. I find using them as a chest pod a real help with my benign essential tremor, more with my Barnacks than with cameras with a centered tripod screw. The other piece of Leitz hardware I find helpful is the CTOOM flash bracket. It gets my left hand out of the way so I can more easily press the camera against my face.

 

[Richard G]

Good point re CTOOM. Good luck both of you. There are no good tablets for tremor. But in very skilled hands Botox, mainly in the forearm, and not at all in the hand itself, can be successful. I have a genius neurologist colleague in Melbourne who is the go to in everyone’s opinion. The last report in a very happy patient detailed judicious injection of 12 different muscles. It lasts three months or so.