How to Hold a Camera Correctly to Reduce Vibration

Knowing how to hold a camera is very important if you want to get pin sharp photos; how frustrating is it when your potentially great photos are blurry.

how to hold a camera

When taking pictures, one of the biggest frustrations is camera shake, which is quite often the result of two things; first is the way you are holding your camera and the second is your shutter speed which is simply too slow despite using the correct handling technique. Hand-holding a camera in the correct way can drastically reduce camera shake and result in many more sharp images. In this article, I will discuss a few different ways to hold a camera, which will hopefully help you to reduce unusable images.

Built in Features

The majority of digital cameras come with specific features to help avoid camera shake, with image stabilisation built directly into the camera sensor, plus a lot of lenses also featuring image stabilisation. Combined with good use of Aperture, Speed and ISO, your blurred images should be relatively few and far between. The exposure triangle below shows the relationship between these three key elements.

how to properly hold a camera

What is Camera Shake?

Camera shake occurs when the camera is unintentionally moved when you are taking the shot, as a result the photo is blurry, or shows traces of ‘drag’, (almost unintentional motion blur), of the subject. Camera shake normally occurs, (this is a rough rule of thumb), when you are hand holding your camera and have a shutter speed below 1/125th sec. Low-light conditions are notoriously bad for hand help photography.

Great British Photography Competition

If, like me you have been watching this series, where six amateur photographers work with Rankin and face a set of challenges intended to get them out of their comfort zones. You might have noticed in episode 3, the street athlete challenge, that only one of the photographers, Paul Williams, managed to take consistently well lit images of the street athletes; the others resorted to using flash or accepted the fact that their images would be on the dark side.

The reason Paul’s image was so successful is because he understood his camera’s limits and set his ISO to a whopping 4000, without any hint of noise in the resulting! By doing this he basically turned what was a fairly dark and dingy location into a bright scene by fooling his camera into thinking there was more light available than there actually was. However you can tell from the slight blurring of the main subject that he kept his shutter speed low enough to impart motion into the image.

photos are blurry

 

How to Properly Hold a Camera – Techniques

OK that’s all of the in camera stuff dealt with, now let us talk about a few hand-holding techniques that will help you eliminate camera shake and produce crisp images and reduce the instances where a photo is blurry. For all of these positions your non-shutter hand will be under the camera body and/or the lens barrel, depending on the focal length of your lens. With a short 10-18mm lens there is virtually no weight beyond the camera body, but with a 100-400mm lens [or longer] there is a lot of weight forward of the camera. The trick is to find the fulcrum point with your supporting hand, therefore creating a stable supporting platform, while you shutter hand grips the side of the camera body.

Holding a Camera in the Standing Position

In a standing position, try using the tips below to avoid camera shake:

Stand side on to your subject:

You typically have more balance when standing side on to your subject, since there is less back and forth movement of your body compared to when standing parallel to your subject. If you find that your photo is blurry then try ‘leaning in‘ as explained below.

Brace your elbow into your side:

how to hold a camera

left – camera unsupported, right – camera supported

You really want to avoid having your elbows unsupported because they will constantly move, causing your hands to move as well. Tensing your arms to prevent this movement will induce more vibration as your muscles shake and this vibration will be passed through to your hands and into the camera body. What you should do is drop your shoulder, (left if you are right handed and right if you are left handed), and rest the point of your elbow into the side of your body thereby creating a situation where your arm is now supported by your body.

Use the camera viewfinder:

Using the viewfinder creates another solid point of contact with your face which will help to stabilise the camera. Using live view or an extended screen leaves your arms floating free of your body and makes it harder to reduce unwanted vibrations.

Breathe out before squeezing the shutter release:

If you have any experience shooting long-range rifles then you will already understand this technique. By slowly breathing out right before squeezing the shutter release, you reduce the chance of camera shake even more, because your body is not moving as much as it does when you continue to breathe. In addition notice that I said squeeze the shutter, try not to stab the shutter button.

Shooting with a Telephoto Lens

The technique for hand-holding your longer focal lenses is slightly different, because there is much more weight on the front of the camera. For the most part though, you will be doing the same things as when handling a regular setup. The first thing I do is either move the tripod foot out of the way or remove it altogether. Then I find the fulcrum point where the kit doesn’t want to fall either forwards or backwards. I combine this technique with the tips above if I am standing. If my photo is blurry I will adjust my internal camera settings as necessary.

Use available architecture

A great way to significantly reduce camera shake is to find a stable object that you can lean against, such as a tree, fence, wall or car. This almost completely eliminates the potential for body and hand movement and allows you use a slower shutter speed than if you were free standing. 

How to properly hold a camera while standing

I do not stand very often, especially when shooting wildlife, but there are occasions when it is avoidable. The key here is to keep your arms and elbows tight to your body and use these and your face to support the camera.

How to properly hold a camera while kneeling

I quite often sit or kneel down to shoot my wildlife images as it gets me to eye level with a lot of subjects. If I kneel I sit back onto my rear leg and brace my supporting arm on my upright knee. If I am sitting down I lean forward slightly so that I can brace both elbows against my knees. This stance uses my body to create a nice stable base.

photos are blurry

left – left elbow is unsupported, right – elbow is supported by left leg

How to properly hold a camera while sitting

I quite often sit down to shoot my wildlife images as it gets me to eye level with a lot of subjects. When I am sitting down I lean forward slightly so that I can brace both elbows against my knees. This method of supporting the camera uses my whole body to create a nice stable base.

how to hold a camera

How to properly hold a camera while lying prone

As a wildlife photographer I quite often find myself lying prone on the ground in order to hide from my subjects. In this position I can wedge both elbows against the ground and use my head as the third contact point, thereby creating a human tripod. This image of a Red Kite on the ground is a perfect example of why I need to be lower down.

photos are blurry

supporting your camera in the prone position

photos are blurry

red kite shot a ground level

Considerations to bear in mind

Just because your camera and/or lens has built in image stabilisation this does not mean you can expect to get pin sharp images, especially when you push the boundaries of what is possible when hand holding your camera. If you are struggling to take sharp images at lower shutter speeds and you have an image stabilisation feature, just check that you have activated it. More than once I have turned it off when using a tripod and then forgotten to turn  it back on again.

I use back button focusing, this allows me to focus and re-frame but it also give the camera’s stabilistaion time to fully kick in. I also keep my camera in AI Servo mode 

How to Properly Hold a Camera

and choose a focusing mode suitable to my subject.how to properly hold a camera

Dealing with Camera Shake on a Tripod

You wouldn’t expect camera shake to occur when using a tripod, however do not forget the wind, and releasing the shutter by hand can cause unwanted vibrations. To avoid this use a remote release or the camera’s built in timer.

Wind

If the wind is high try shooting with your tripod placed in a sheltered spot or from a lower angle. If you cannot find a sheltered spot which doesn’t impede your shot simply put yourself between the wind and the camera as a living wind break. If your tripod has a hook try hanging your kit bag underneath the tripod and use the weight to help keep it stable. 

Built in stabilisation

Remember to turn off any built in stabilisation features on your camera and lens because they will naturally conflict with the tripod and try to stabilise vibration which is simply not there.

As a photographer I always strive to capture pin sharp photographs with maximum detail, I very rarely suffer from camera shake where my photos are blurry, but I understand it can be very frustrating to deal with.

I hope this article on how to hold your camera properly. If you have any other tips to avoid camera shake or how to properly hold a camera, please let me know in the comments section below!

Happy shooting!