"You can make excuses all day long, but generally if you really want the best quality you should use [a tripod]." - 365 Project, Day 324

The fifth key in Gavin Seim's postulation of the six keys to crazy awesome picture quality is stability.  For him, hand-holding is never the best way to get the clearest picture; you need a tripod.  Even following the focal length/time guidelines, and with steady hands, you'll get a better result with a tripod.  Hand-holding might be fine for Facebook, or 8x10s, or maybe even 24x18s, but there's no way you can blow it up and have it be as clear as if you'd used a tripod.

This makes sense.  He also mentions that sometimes you don't have time to set up, in which case you can a clear shot by speeding up the shutter speed and boosting the ISO, but then you have to worry about noise.  I can't really argue with this.

For landscapes, though, I don't think anybody would disagree with using a tripod.  Street and photojournalism, though, would be a bit awkward if you'd carry around something.  However, I don't think anybody would blow up street shots or photojournalism shot to 60 or 70 inches across.

Her are our unstabilised shots.  Shannon has weirdnesses with her phone and won't be able to post for the next little while.

Frank

His note: With a little imagination doesn't this melted ice on my windshield look a bit like a baby gator?

Pat

I wasn't much thinking about taking pictures today but did get this one off.  I wanted to get the contrast of the darkness of the branches and the brightness of the tips covered in ice.  I hope I did get that.  I didn't really want to make the shadowy areas too dark.  It's not the best picture, but I made the most of it.

Tomorrow is next.