Tripod tribulations

I have just been re-reading the ‘Lose Your Tripod’ issue (AP, 1 April). The only times I have damaged any of my camera equipment in more than 50 years of dabbling with photography occurred when I was using a tripod. In the late 1980s at Loch Lomond, my tripod, with my cherished Pentax MX mounted on top, keeled over while my back was turned. It hit a rock, and the camera’s top-plate and shutter speed dial were damaged.

Then at Coniston Water in the late 1990s, the same tripod, this time with my Pentax MZ-5 on top, fell over and the lens copped it against another rock. The MX was repaired, but the lens on the MZ-5 was a write- off. After the second episode, I decided not to use a tripod again, and I never have.

As far as I am concerned, tripod is an acronym for Toppling Rapscallion Inflicts Potentially Odious Damage.

Douglas Thomson, Edinburgh