No tripod, I think that we were actually pretty far back, like around the little grassy area where the bench is in front of the train depot. The camera is/was a Sony cybershot, actually most of them were with our older model, a DSC-P9, it's a 4 megapixel. THe other is a DSC-W50, a 6 megapixel. The 6 is the newer camera and has more bells and whistles ( ie settings) but the old one still takes great photos. They both have digital and optical zoom.