I admit it - I can be lazy. I do a lot of travel, and while I know I should take a tripod with me, I often don't. I was recently up in Seattle attending a conference at Microsoft, and got a good reminder of the value of packing a tripod.

I'd returned to my hotel room after an evening of dinner and drinks with friends the night before the conference started. Looking out my hotel window, I saw a beautiful crescent moon about to set next to the Seattle skyline (at least I think it's Seattle!). And I thought, "Darn, wish I'd brought a tripod along." But then, miracle of miracles, I realized I had, After Seattle I was going straight to Montana to teach a photo workshop for American Photo, and had a tripod packed for that.

Karma was smiling on me too, and not just for bringing a tripod. Turns out the moon was coming down in the flight path of some planes taking off, so two times during the eight-second exposures the camera caught a plane's flashing red light. And by using the camera's self timer, set to two seconds, I wasn't going to shake the camera when pushing the shutter button.

Once again I learned a good lesson. While I still won't always pack a serious tripod like the one I had for the photo trek, I will start packing a nice small one that would be perfect for something like this. Because I hate nothing more than seeing a good shot and being unable to make the picture.