It must be obvious by now, going on 10 pages, that there are kids of work and requirements that make tripod usage mandatory, some kinds of work where it is optional, and some kinds of situations where tripos use is impractical or impossible. If you are serious about your photography you know what the best approach to any given job is.

Think about this- you capture a truly great shot. You just went out and want some casual images to view your monitor or laptop or to make a few small prints. This shot, however, is definitely your masterpiece so you decide to make a big wall-hanger, only to find the image suffers from blur due to camera movement that was not noticeable on a small screen- RATS!

Or...you drag along a heavy tripod and when you get to some exotic location, you find tripods or are not allowed, or that shootig with one for some precarious position, like a narrow ledge, and you are stuck with no place to store the thing away. Not good!

Plan, know where you are going and waht you will be doing. Get a good travel tripod, consider a monopod. or devise,in advance, some improvisations.

btbg,
Do you think that the pictures of what you want are already limited by what equipment you have? For instance, I would not even think of shooting fast action in dim light with a very long lens, hand-held, but if I had a tripod and the time allowed it, I would think up pictures I could take with that.

The rank amateur or beginner might think a normal lens can get good pictures of birds or football players at night, or a performer on a stage, while the experienced photographer, carrying a simple box camera, will just use it for what it can do.

The tripod fits into that way of thinking. If you go out wanting to shoot anything that comes along, you may have to take all the equipment you own, even if you rarely need it. But normally, if we are looking for views in the city or in the country, we know what to take. Some photo styles may be called the snapshot style, and an old Kodak Brownie or a good cell phone is just right. The tripod is for a) greater options regarding light and motion, and b) greater demands regarding resolution and depth of field. But we have to limit our aspirations to what is possible.