My hobby is photo logging old cemeteries, but I am no longer able to squat down to align directly with the upright stones. How can this be done? I see "selfie sticks," but I wonder if such an extension is available for my use. I do not use a phone, but a regular digital camera. How would I focus if the camera is mounted on a stick several feet from me?

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    Are you able to use tilt-and-shift lenses with your camera? – user32543 Apr 11 '15 at 11:10
  • Also, how would you keep steady a heavy weight at the end of a long stick? – Jasen Apr 11 '15 at 19:41
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    Keep in mind that getting as far from the subject as possible will reduce the need for a low angle, whatever method you might use to obtain one. – junkyardsparkle Apr 11 '15 at 22:45
  • As Loong indicates, a lens with shifting capability would be perfect. – Myridium Apr 13 '15 at 16:28

10 Answers 10


Many tripods allow you to invert the center column, putting the camera below where the legs meet. You can mount the camera at the proper height this way, then move the tripod around until you get the view you want.

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    Combined with a shutter release cable/remote, prime lens with good autofocus, and a decent flash, this would be just about perfect. – bcrist Apr 11 '15 at 17:45
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    Instead of an invertible center column, one might look at an off-center column tripod which allows for other adjustments. The design I linked was one that was a center column variation. The off center one is more along the lines of this gitzo. – user13451 Apr 12 '15 at 14:12

You can do perspective correction in post. This emulates the effect of tilt-shift lenses. Not all photo manipulation programs have this capability. I often even prefer perspective correction over changing the camera's position, because it allows me to make straight lines parallel while still keeping the angle of the photo that I want. For instance, you can take a picture from above, like this:

Picture from above

And you can correct the perspective to make the lines parallel:

enter image description here

This is a pretty sloppy job... you'll notice how it's a bit squashed, but it should give you an idea of what you can do.

  • The picture is still from above, so you have additional freedom to frame the picture (choose what goes in the background, for example).

  • You're not forced to use one-point perspective in the final result.

  • You have additional freedom to move the camera to account for things like reflections if you're taking pictures of something shiny.

You'll want to take a few extra pictures framed differently if you do it this way, at least until you get the hang of it. You may often need more space between the subject and the edge of the photo than you realize.

As for focus... without a tilt-shift lens or a large format camera, you're just going to have to use a smaller aperture.

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    This can be a good solution, but do note that it can sometimes produce a weird-looking perspective. For example, if you applied it to a picture of a low gravestone taken from higher up, the top side of the gravestone would remain visible even after the tilt correction, possibly making it look as if it was slanted. The background will also look quite different from what you'd get by moving the camera lower. – Ilmari Karonen Apr 11 '15 at 18:46
  • @IlmariKaronen: Yes, but the same is said of tilt-shift lenses, which have been used for this purpose for a long time (~a century)... it's extremely common in architectural photography, and you may not even notice it. – Dietrich Epp Apr 11 '15 at 19:29
  • That's true, and I do have some experience with this technique myself. But with architecture, you don't usually end up with visible surfaces in the picture that would've been hidden if had been actually taken face-on. – Ilmari Karonen Apr 11 '15 at 19:40
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    Still, it can certainly work, and you (already) have my +1 for that. I just wanted to point out some potential issues in advance. In the end, the only real way to find out if this method will give acceptable results for the OP is for them to go out, take some test shots and try it. (One thing I would suggest for the OP is getting as far from the gravestone as they reasonably can, and using a long lens / zoom setting to take the picture. The less you need to change the perspective in post, the less likely it is to look "funny".) – Ilmari Karonen Apr 11 '15 at 19:46

Mount your camera on a low tripod and tether your camera to a laptop. You would then preview on the laptop before remotely triggering the shutter and capture the image through software like Aperture or Lightroom.

It's more stuff to lug around but you won't need to squat long to compose and capture.

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    Taking a laptop is a bit extreme, some cameras allow you to focus and compose with a smart phone which more practical! – Matt Grum Apr 13 '15 at 8:49
  • Yes, it's the same idea – Jasen Apr 13 '15 at 17:33

You mention that you use "a regular digital camera", which a few Google searches suggest means point-and-shoot.

I hope I will not sound offensive, but maybe a flip screen camera could get the job done?

Flip screen camera

Of course the focus/etc will not be as great as with a DSLR, but if you use a regular digital camera in the first place, then it should be OK.

Lower your arms, take a picture while looking at the screen, then have a look and take again with different settings if the details can be improved. It will be as low as if crouching, and far less tiring.

UPDATE: As Raphael pointed out in the comments, there are also DSLRs with such a screen.

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    There are DSLRs (and probably MILCs and SLTs as well) with such displays. – Raphael Apr 12 '15 at 16:28

The Canon 70d has built-in WiFi that you can use to control the camera from a smartphone or tablet, via an app. You can mount the camera on a low tripod (or a taller tripod with an inverted centre column), see what it's pointing at in real time on your phone/tablet and control the shutter from it, too.

You'd still have to bend down to position the camera, of course, but I guess that would be easier on your legs than squatting.

I mention the 70d because it's the camera I have (though I've not used this feature of it); other recent cameras probably have similar features.

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    The 70d also has that flip display which alone may be enough for the OP. – Raphael Apr 12 '15 at 16:27
  • @Raphael That's true. Using it would probably involve more bending but it could still be part of a solution. – David Richerby Apr 12 '15 at 17:00

You can improve the perspective by simply standing back and zooming in. The further back you can go the closer to the correct perspective you'll get. You can then correct it further in software if need be.

You can also further improve the perspective by positioning the subject off-centre in the frame. You want it below the centre of the frame if you're above it. This will almost certainly mean you need to focus and recompose. That is you point the camera at the subject, half press the shutter so it locks focus, reframe the shot with the shutter still half pressed, and then push the shutter all the way down. You can then crop the image to remove the empty space above the subject. Of course the downside is that you end up with a somewhat lower resolution image.


How about using something like a Walkstool and a short tripod? http://www.walkstool.com/comfort

Does your digital camera have an articulating screen? You could use it like a waist-level finder.


Another option is to use a tilt-shift lens. Canon makes good ones, the Nikon ones aren't so great (I'm a Nikon user). This will enable you to take a photograph with the camera at eye height standing up with no converging vertical lines.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt%E2%80%93shift_photography


You didn't mention whether your camera is a DSLR or a compact camera, but if it's a DSLR with live view and a flip-out or articulating LCD panel, then there's an easy way, which I use all the time these days as my knees are too challenged to get down low very often.

Mount the camera on a tripod or monopod set to the height you need, turn on live view and flip out your screen (if it is an articulating one, so much the better), then simply lean over so that you can see the screen and work with it rather than the viewfinder. Use live view to focus if you're doing so manually (my camera allows for 5x and 10x zoom in live view - I usually find 5x is enough, using manual focus), and keep it in live view when you press the shutter (because using live view engages mirror lockup, which means no stray light will find its way through your viewfinder). Live view is battery hungry but I'd rather carry an extra battery than stress my knees all the time.


Some hiking sticks have a removable head. (Check at REI) Unscrewing the head reveals a tripod-socket-compatible 1/4 inch stud. I attach my camera to my stick to take a photo from a higher or lower perspective. When holding the camera lower, the camera and photo will be upside down. But, that's a one-button fix in most photo editing software.

To release the shutter, you can use the self-timer, or, if your camera has them, infrared or smart-phone remote controls.

I wouldn't worry too much about whether you can frame the shot on the screen or the viewfinder. Tombstones are easy targets. You can just look at the photo and take another one if it isn't composed exactly right.

Using the stick is faster than setting up a tripod for each photo. Often there is limited space in graveyards for a tripod, anyway. The stick is lighter than using a collapsed tripod for the same purpose.

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