Shaky hands - what to do?

Hi,

 

Sorry, but I don't know where to post this question so its gone to

several places... I use Pentax though.

 

I am not blessed with the world's steadiest pair of hands; in fact

1/125 is marginal for me!! I usually use 100 slide film and review

with a 8x loupe. Mainly use wide-angles - put it this way, a 50mm

lens feels like a telephoto to me!

 

Ok I have tripod amd do use it... Often I crouch putting my elbows on

my knees or lean against something. I am in my mid 30's and do not

have a tremor. Not a caffeine junky either! I hold my breath when

pressing the shutter.

 

I have always wondered if I would be better of with a lighter or

heavier camera body? Lighter body means less mass to counter my

unsteady hands but less less effort which can mean less shaking for

me. Heavier body vice versa...

 

It is something I'm always worried about - may be I need to relax

more?

 

Any suggestions?

 

Thanks folks!

Leaning on a door bracing myself with a 50mm f1.4 ASA 400 film I got very acceptable results at 30th of a second. If I'm standing tall I usually don't feel they are acceptable (in my hands) unless the shutter speed is 1/60th of a second. I drive the camera into my nose, generally spread my legs appart hold my breath and sqeeze gently.

 

I saw a guy with a very cleaver divice called a "string-tripod". Technically all he had was a nut in the tripod socket a long string with a loop and he would step down into the loop. He claimed he got sharp shots at 1/8th second-certainly his work at 1/30th looked good to me.

 

I don't know. Many people say a heavier camera body works best, I'm not convinced. I think mirror slap, moving the camera body when the shutter is presssed and one's own juggling are all in play.

I don't know if you have ever shot or been trained to shoot a rifle, but I use the training I recieved in the army in handheld photography all the time. I brace myself and control my breating, I gently squeeze the shutter button, I try not to press to quick or jerk my fingers at all. It helps a lot to just practice your technique by dry firing and use different stances. For instance, If I crouch on one knee, I am much steadier. I find it easier to trip the shutter button when I am exhaling, not inhaling. If this doesn't help, you could always try a monopod or faster film.

Driver, 1/125 is about as slow as I'll go, hand-held unless, as Doug noted, I brace myself. I shoot a lot of moving targets (trains) and prefer 1/500 or 1/1000 to mimimize camera shake and yield sharp "stop-action" images as viewed with a 10 power loupe. Regarding the camera, I like some "heft" in my hands, so I'm comfortable with the weight that the LX and attached winder give me.

 

I too, use the 35mm a lot, along with the 50mm1.4 and the 135. Any longer lenses usually go on the tripod, time permitting.

 

LK

There is no razor sharp handheld 1/15 sec in the whole world. It is a quite well known fact, that even photographers with steady hands should better expose at 1/250 sec, which becomes clear as soon as they try to picture a newspaper or similar at different speeds and the pictures become enlarged. !/60 sec as a minimum for 50mm lenses is suggested for moderate looking 4x6" enlargements.

Maybe practising shooting rifles is a good idea. Using airguns should do. I don't know if relaxing is a good thing - I once read somewherethat highly eemotional people could develop steadyer hands than calm ones.

Get a monopod. Try a heavyer camera, which you can still hold comfortably, without cramping, but don't expect wonders. Switch to faster film and MF or digital as you like.

L-Plate, I suspect part of the problem is simply being too picky about how sharp your photos are. What I mean is that other people are probably shooting at 1/30 and saying it's good, where you'd look at the same photo and think it wasn't. I've seen people do similar things with depth-of-field, where the ordinary charts just weren't good enough for them. That's not a bad thing, necessarily, just that it might explain differences in your experience from other people's.

 

You don't say what your final usage for photos is, just that you look at them with 8x loupe. So...what is your final use? If you're just posting online, or making 4x6 prints out of them, you're probably being too picky about the results, and could cut the photos some slack on the sharpness side. If you're making big enlargements all the time, then probably not.

I don't think holding your breath is helpful... it makes your heart pound and your hands shake. If you noted in RJ Hicks' reference to shooting rifles, he mentions releasing while exhaling; in my case, whether with a rifle or a camera, if i'm trying to be particularly steady I release just as I'm reaching the end of an exhale stroke, in the pause before inhaling.

 

Leaning on something also helps a lot, probably the best thing you can do short of a tripod (and may be better in some cases). Elbows on your knees doesn't sound like a steady posture to me, but maybe i'm missing something. A reasonable amount of heft is a good thing, i don't think most 35mms are heavy enough to make you shake from supporting the weight.

It makes your heart pump more. Shoot as you gently exhale. And practice that last knuckle joint movement as if you were learning to play violin - nothing else should move.

I should try to make something clear in my last post, I am not advocating holding your breath, but rather controling your breathing and relaxing. I know that if I am tense, I tend to become twitchy (I actually am a coffee junky, no decaf for me, no sir) and it does the shot no good. I traveled Europe on vacation and brought a monopod, it helped quite a bit in lower light. The bottom line is that handheld photos, no matter how steadier you are, will still be less crisp than ones on tripods. Also, a whole bunch of practice will go along way.

Breathe and relax, if that dosen't work buy a tripod.

You probably don't want to hear, change equipment, but that might be a sensible way to deal with this. Konica-Minolta have a couple of digital cameras with image stabilisation built in to the body. Canon and Nikon have image stabilised lenses for their slr cameras. I've seen a few people who have problems with shaky hands say that these cameras/lenses have enabled them to continue with photography.

Please tell us which camera body and lens that you are getting the shaky images with.

Have you tried a monopod? Have you thought about trying a rangefinder (no mirror

slap)

camera? Digital image stabilization works pretty well. Here is one more thought.

Have you ever tried the Pentax 645? It is engineered to be very hand holdable, with

special mirror vibration dampening. One last thought, and cheap as well... have you

tried using a bean bag? They really do work.

What you can handhold depends on the focal length of the lens. A 35mm lens can be handheld at 1/30 sec, a 50mm at 1/60 sec and a 135mm at 1/125. So try to use wider angle lenses where the shake is less noticeable. Use a tripod and cable release for most of your shots.

My own 2 cents about breath control and shooting. The trick with the "breath holding" technique with regards to rifle shooting (based on my own experience) is to hold after your exhale, not when inhaling. Holding your breath after your inhale will cause shaking. Holding after your exhale won't (as long as you don't hold it for too long, of course).

Are you born with shaky hands? If not then I suugest you should check your thyroid function with your doctor. A hyper-active thyroid is very common these days.

I too have unsteady hands and many of my pictures suffer from camera motion blur. Like L-Plate, my hands aren't noticeably shaky, until I look through the viewfinder. I've been bracing my arms on my chest, squeezing instead of jabbing the shutter button, holding my breath, and afraid to leave home without a monopod.

 

Three things just made a huge difference. The most important was the advice to hold my breath at the *end* of the exhale. Wow! I could immediately see the difference. Thank you, thank you to those who posted that advice. The second was Anti-Shake. The third was the heft of a lens bigger than my trusty old 28-200 lightweight Sigma superzoom.

 

Yesterday my new Sigma 70-200 f2.8 EX lens arrived with a Sigma 2x APO teleconverter. I assembled this beautiful monster onto my Maxxum 7D, propped myself against a wall, and asked my wife to sit still. The tripod can wait.

 

Here's a crop of my best shot (the full frame doesn't quite cover her whole face). Effective focal length was 600mm, exposure was 1/20th of a second. No sharpening was done to the image. I can't believe I did it, but I got similar results on a number of shots and did it again today to make sure it wasn't a fluke.

Hi all!

 

Sincere thanks all for your advise!

 

Just returned from Sydney on 28th and got my Velvia 50 slides back the next day.

 

Using the loupe x8, there was only 1 unacceptible slide - much better than average!

 

I tried to do the following: exhaling gently and squeezing the shutter at the end of the exhale; tucking in the elbows; choosing larger apertures and RELAXING/feeling quietly confident.

 

It really worked, so thank you, thank you, thasnk you...

Oh I forgot to mention I stuck with a Super Program for Velvia 50; I have large hands and took off the grip which I have never felt comfortable with; used K 28mm f3.5, A 50mm f1.7 and K 35mm f3.5.

 

The P50 had EB-100 Kodachrome which I am yet to process.

 

For both cameras, I took off the polariser quite often to make sure I shot most shots faster than 1/125.

 

I used a tripod for all 70-210 zoom shots and all dusk shots (sheesh! the outline of the opera house from the east, orangy sky in the west plus south end of the harbour bridge and some bridge walkers on it looked nice...)

 

BTW How is it that the 645 is more comfortable to hand hold? I have never seen one in real life...