Overcoming one of the common challenges of Photography - Camera Shake

Now that we are starting to form the foundation of our understanding of the exposure triangle, I want to start to address some of the common challenges you will face with your photography.  We will apply what we are learning to put the odds in our favor of getting the right shot even when conditions aren't perfect.  Let's face it, all too often we're trying to take photos when conditions are less than ideal: Poorly lit gymnasiums, indoors with limited light, outside at a night sporting event.

One thing we all need to keep in mind is we won't always be able to get the shot we want.  We will all shoot lots of throwaway photos.  There will be frustration.  You'll want to get something but it just won't work for you.   This happens to the best photographers out there so don't worry.   What we will want to do is leverage our equipment to its fullest and maximize our opportunities.

Let's start with one of the most common challenge:

Camera Shake -  This is one we cause ourselves.  As much as we try to hold the camera steady, sometimes it's just not enough.  The result is an image that lacks sharpness, it may even be downright blurry.   This is far more prevalent the longer the focal length of the lens.   For instance, a 50mm lens is pretty easy to hold steady an not have camera shake, but a 300mm is much more challenging.  Even the slightest tremble will cause your image to lose sharpness.   The good news is that many of the newer lenses have built in technology which will help you maintain steadiness.   For instance, Canon has Image Stabilization and Nikon has Vibration Reduction.  Sigma has Optical Stabilization.  Some cameras have stabilization built into the bodies.

That being said, what if you don't have stabilization?  Also, stabilization isn't perfect.  Even with stabilization you need to do certain things to help ensure you're minimizing the risk of camera shake.

How do we minimize the chance of camera shake?  We talked before about freezing action.  If you recall we used fast shutter speeds to freeze action.   Well eliminating camera shake is essentially just like freezing action.   The difference here is the "action" is our natural tendency to move slightly (or shake) when trying to hold our cameras steady.

The first solution, and perhaps the most obvious, is to use a tripod, a monopod, or some other means to stabilize your camera.  This could be placing it on a hard/supportive surface like a table or counter. This solution takes us out of the equation so we won't be the cause of the vibration.   There will be times when this is the only right solution.  You simply won't be able to hand hold a long exposure shot.

The next solution involves you utilizing the exposure triangle.  At low focal lengths, we can combat this with only slight adjustments to shutter speed.  Many of the starter lenses you purchase in kits fall in this category.   They are typically 18 - 50mm or so.  With these you can fairly easily hand hold the camera at a shutter speed around 1/60 of a second.  With good technique and builtin camera or lens stabilization you might be able to dip down a little further to 1/30 of a second.   Below that and it gets more challenging.    As the lens gets longer, you often need significantly faster shutter speeds, in fact you'll often here that you need to equal the length of the lens.   For instance, if you're shooting at 200mm, you may need to shoot at 1/200 second (once again depending on if you have vibration control in your camera or lens.)  Although this will further add confusion, many of you are likely using crop sensor cameras.  This should be taken into account as well.  It means that the actual focal length is actually greater than the lens rating.   We'll discuss this in a later post.

The take away is that as you increase the focal length you'll need to increase your shutter speed if you are hand holding your camera.    How do we increase our shutter speed (while keeping a proper exposure?)    We can open up our aperture by going to a lower value, for example from f/8 down to f/4.   And we can also increase our ISO setting to allow for a faster shutter speed.

Let's look at some examples to see what this looks like.   I took all three shots handheld using the same bracing technique.  You can see the effects of a faster shutter speed on the sharpness of the image.   The three images are cropped to accentuate the impact.

100mm  f/4  ISO 400  1/25 second exposure

100mm  f/4  ISO 800  1/50 second exposure

100mm f/4  ISO 1600  1/100 second exposure

You can see from the first example that 1/25 second exposure is way too slow for a clear handheld shot.   The letters are very blurry despite me doing my best to keep still.

The second example is definitely better, but there is still some blurriness to the image, especially when compared to the third image where I match the shutter speed to the focal length:  100mm focal length and 1/100 second shutter speed.