I had an opportunity to spend a few days in Paris last year and was really looking forward to doing the tourist thing with my camera. The heavily overcast skies were disappointing for daytime shooting, but the evenings held lots of promise - it is called the “city of lights” after all. But oops, this was a business trip, so all I packed was my dSLR and one extra lens.

Okay, I broke the first rule of night photography, which is “use a tripod.” Ignore this rule and life becomes hard – but not impossible, with a little ingenuity. In fact, many tourist locations don’t permit tripods, so you’ll have to improvise anyway.
Mini tripods (sometimes called tabletop tripods) work if your camera is not too bulky. They don’t take up much room in your luggage and are discrete enough on site that the security guard may not notice. However, I find that they are not robust enough to handle a dSLR.

Beanbags work well because they cradle the camera while conforming to irregular surfaces. For example, suppose you are travelling by car and see a fleeting subject worth photographing. You can stop, put the bag on the roof and compose a shot in far less time than it takes to set up a tripod – specially if it’s in the trunk under a couple of suitcases.

My “beanbag” is a lunch bag-size cloth sack filled with hard plastic craft beads that sits in the bottom of my camera bag. I also have ThePod (www.thepod.ca), a Canadian creation, which is a circular beanbag that’s fitted with a threaded connector that screws into your camera’s tripod socket. The original is about the same diameter as a CD and five centimetres (two inches) thick; a smaller model is also available.

Even without the cushioning effects of a beanbag, you can use whatever’s at hand to steady the camera, although you risk scratching the finish of your camera. I’ve rested mine on garbage bins and concrete walls, I’ve wedged it in an iron gate, pressed it firmly against a lamppost or tree trunk – and have got some good shots for the effort.

Next: Technology to the rescue

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