Shooting Landscapes and Flowers at Duke Farms

I am Larry, the inventor and CEO of Platypod Pro. My wife Mina and I set out for a stroll in New Jersey's lush Duke Farms in Hillsborough. Established in the late 1800s by tobacco tycoon James Buchanan Duke this lovely estate covers almost 2700 acres. I decided to travel really light that day so I took my Nikon D800 and a solitary 60 mm F2.8D macro lens with a Peak Design Slide camera strap across my shoulder and a Platypod Pro® Deluxe kit on my hip with a Really Right Stuff BH-30 head ready to go.

Sometimes, it's a really nice exercise to hone your compositional skills using just one lens. The 60mm (approximately normal) lens gets me to take my own perspective and place it in the camera without exaggeration.

Boy, Duke Farms has some beautiful flowers. As we walked around I couldn’t help but pull out my camera and start snapping. Jumping around and quickly taking handheld shots. But when I came to the river scene I knew I had to stop and pause. I wanted the perfect landscape and needed a multiple exposure HDR shot to bring out the full range of tonality in the scene and then give it a little punch in Photomatix. This was the perfect job for the Platypod Pro®. Someone once told me “the best tripod is the one you have with you”. That saying really struck a chord with me and turned into the inspiration behind my flat and compact design for the Pro.

I placed the Platypod Pro® on a rough granite step for stability. Since it wasn’t a perfectly flat surface, I just screwed one spike-screw in a little bit to even it out and get a better grip. I got the stable shot when I needed it.