Using a modern lens with effective image stabilization in it along with careful hand holding technique may make unnecessary the use of a tripod to gain a sharp image.

Read more here: https://kenrockwell.com/tech/digital-killed-my-tripod.htm

The insistence on use of tripod nowadays appears more like a dogma from the passe film era.

Some conditions of course require a tripod for best results.

Note that the Camera Shake Reduction filter in Photoshop CC can eliminate or compensate for a slightly blurred image.

I recently read that when life gets discouraging or challenging, it helps to think of a happy time & place and retreat there for a while. I have taken that a step farther and created a photo folder called "Escape." It is a constantly changing collection of beautiful landscapes, happy children, pets, wildlife, etc., who will continue to be beautiful and/or happy regardless of how my petty problems are resolved. I go there often and review what I have saved. Some of the photos are from UHH members. I hope you're OK with that. They go on my tablet and stay for a short time before I delete them and find some others to enjoy. If this is overstepping what you would like done with your pics, send me a PM and I'll be sure to not use your work. Otherwise, thanks for making my problems go away -- even for a little while.

Minor correction: a single base-2 or binary digit (0 or 1) is a bit. 8 bits (decimal 0 to 255, Hex 00 to FF) is a byte. A word is dependent on the computer architecture. Common word sizes are 8, 16, 24, 32, and 64 bits (1,2,3,4,8 bytes). Word size is mostly unimportant to the user, however I once worked on a project migrating complex engineering programs from Honeywell (36 bit word - 12 octal digits) to IBM (32 bit word). The heavy matrix calculations involved never yielded exact results on the two platforms, but as in all things engineering they were close enough.