Comments on: Photography Basics — How To Hold Your Camera Like A Pro

By: Shivanand Sharma

Shivanand Sharma — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 10:17:18 +0000

In reply to Visha. That's a good choice. If you have more budget you can compare between D7000 and D5100 too.

By: Visha

Visha — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 05:52:50 +0000

In reply to Shivanand Sharma. I was wondering if Nikon D3100 would be good one. I want to click landscapes, flora and fauna and if we have parties at home. Not more than this.

By: Shivanand Sharma

Shivanand Sharma — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 05:12:18 +0000

@Visha: Thanks for the comment. Choosing a camera largely depends on your budget and requirements.

By: Visha Patel

Visha Patel — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 02:04:31 +0000

HI There,

I loved your site and the tips given in your site is amazing. I was thinking if some body can give me advise on which camera to choose out of which i have short listed. I am looking for Digital SLR camera to buy and I am extremely intersted in photography.

Looking forward to hear from you.

Thanks & Regards
Visha

By: Andre

Andre — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 23:22:25 +0000

Whenever I’m in a situation without a tripod and the shutter speed is so slow that I’m likely to get camera shake, I have a way to hold the camera that gives phenomenal results.

First of all I take my left hand and place it on my right shoulder. I then lift my left elbow up until it’s parallel with the floor. What this effectively does is create a very stable shelf to put my camera on.

Once the camera is on my left arm near the elbow, I use my right hand to do the repositioning for composition and any on camera adjustments. Then when I’m about to hit the shutter release button, I hold my breath, steady myself and press.

With a bit of practice you can get really steady shots right down to 1/30th of a second or lower (depending of course on the focal length you’re working with).

I recently just did an indoor test to prove to myself that this technique actually works. I used an 18-105 lens set of 105mm, f 5.6, ISO of 800 and a shutter speed of – get this – 1/10th of a second.

I focused on the nose of “Whinnie the Pooh” that was 20 feet away and painted on one of my kids chairs. Using a traditional stance lLike in the photograph above under point #4) it was hard to keep the nose centered in the viewfinder and the resulting image ended up slightly blurry.

Using the modified stance I described above, it was a lot easier to keep the nose in the center of the viewfinder and I got a rock solid image at 1/10 of a second. Then just for fun I wanted to see how far I could push it. I got down as far as 1/4 of a second with startling great results.

Beyond that things didn’t turn out to well – but still a 1/4 of a second is a long time to get non-blurry, handheld results.