I have also tried a monopod and some home made "steadying sticks".
Almost none of these setups got used beyond the experimental stage. The one setup that has worked well has been a Benro carbon fibre tripod with a reversible central column to which is attached a Velbon extending arm.
Before that I used a similar setup with a much heavier metal construction and adjustments that were similar in flexibility to the Benro/Velbon setup but more difficult and slower to adjust.
It is true that using a tripod has benefits for my most common subject matter - flowers etc and medium sized invertebrates. If using available light a tripod lets me use slower shutter speeds than I can hand-held, and hence sometimes lower ISO, with less noise and more detail. And for some subjects, such as early morning invertebrates where very long exposures are needed a tripod is essential. Also, whether using available light or flash, using a tripod helps frame the shot more precisely, especially as magnification increases, and makes it possible to retain the framing for repeated shots of the same subject, avoiding the strain of maintaining the same position for extended periods. Holding the camera steady with a tripod can also make it easier for autofocus to engage and for the area focused on not to have moved too far between focus engaging and the shot being captured.
However, with the techniques I am currently using shutter speed is not much of a problem. I am using post focus most of the time for botanical subjects. Shutter speed with post focus cannot be slower than 1/30 second, and this turns out to be fast enough with the G9 and 60mm macro to get sharp hand-held images of stationary subjects most of the time at the relatively low magnifications I typically use. It seems that erratic subject motion in the often breezy conditions here is more of an issue than blur from hand-shake, and using a tripod does not help with subject motion, especially when different parts of a plant move in different directions and/or by different amounts, which is very problematic for stacking. The stacking software does not seem to have a problem dealing with the coherent movement of the subject/scene (all of the scene moving in the same way) caused by hand-shake; as long as the individual images are sharp it doesn't seem to matter if they wander around from frame to frame, including moving around by fairly large amounts.
I am comfortable using up to ISO 800 with the G9, or ISO 1600 if I have to, but almost all the time recently I have found that I can use ISO 400 or lower, generally using shutter speeds faster than the 1/30 second minimum, often considerably faster.
For medium sized invertebrates I typically use flash as the dominant light source. This means that the effective shutter speed is the length of the flash pulse, which is somewhere in the region of 1/2500 sec with the flash I am using at the power I am using it. This means that image blur from hand-shake is not an issue at the scene sizes I photograph, usually no smaller than around 9mm wide.
As to precise framing and retaining framing over an extended period, I have found that if this becomes problematic I can relax the framing, leaving a larger "dead space" outside the prospective final image perimeter to allow the framing to wander around but still get sufficient image quality for my purposes despite using a larger crop.
It also turns out that for these sorts of subjects, magnifications and techniques focusing issues are not problematic.
Therefore, for much of what I photograph the practical benefits of using a tripod are limited, and these need to be weighed against the disadvantages.
Setting up the tripod takes time and, especially with invertebrates, can lead to missed shots. (This can occasionally be an issue with plants when particularly propitious illumination can disappear quite fast.) Using a tripod also makes it more difficult/slower to explore alternative angles on and distances from the subject. I do a lot of this with botanical subjects, and sometimes with invertebrates too.
Sometimes it is simply not possible to use a tripod. I have an extremely flexible tripod, but even so I sometimes need to get angles on subjects (invertebrates and plants) that I cannot reach when using the tripod. With my current setup dismounting and remounting the tripod from the four way focus rail is fiddly and tedious.
I find that photo sessions are less fluid and more laboured when using a tripod, and less enjoyable.
Given this balance of benefits and disbenefits, I tend not to use a tripod for these most common of my subject areas.
I don't often photograph smaller scenes, but when I do framing and focusing issues are more evident. I tend to use a tripod for these, although as with most of my tripod use, current and previous, I keep my hands on the camera rather than using remote shutter release. I find this makes it easier to get and retain the precise framing that I want. The problem I find with hands-off operation is that when I take my hands off the camera the rig settles into a different position, altering the framing. When photographing small scenes this can make it very difficult to get the required framing because I have to use trial and error to get the rig to settle into the position I want it in to take the photo.
For common birds in flight I don't think using a tripod would be at all helpful. I use fast shutter speeds so hand shake is not a problem, and I need speedy, instant to instant, flexbility of positioning.
For cloudscapes and sunsets I don't see a tripod being particularly beneficial while the sun is still above the horizon because shutter speeds are fast enough to avoid hand shake and when using relatively wide angles changes in alignment from shot to shot don't appear to be an issue when shooting exposure brackets. However, for panoramas and when light levels fall when the sun drops behind the horizon a tripod would be beneficial. (I say "would be" because I have not done much of this type of photography for some time.)
Overall then my attitude to using a tripod is that I'll use one when the balance of benefits favours doing so, but for most of what I am doing at the moment that does not seem to be the case.
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