Pixiq

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NOTE: This is the first of a series of articles about understanding and controlling shutter speed. I will cover each factor in depth in upcoming articles, factors such as lens focal length and subject movement. Stay tuned.

A man who ran a photographic print lab told me, "The number one reason for blurred or unsharp photos is due to camera shake." This means that the shutter speed and/or a photographer's technique for steadying a camera is critical. And understanding how to work with shutter speeds is a key skill for any advanced photographer.

Handholding a camera at very slow shutter speeds is one of the secrets pros know about -- yet the technique is often unknown to the general public. Handholding gives the photographer huge flexibility both in movement, timing and position. On the other hand a tripod is intrusive, slow and once set up, hard to change. Pros can often get 'impossible' shots because they know how to handhold and get sharp or acceptable photographs under difficult conditions.

Steady handholding has another advantage. It allows you to shoot in lower light situations: it's like going from a f/4 lens to a f/1.0 lens for free -- you now have much more light to work with.

So what is the secret? Well, if it were simple, I would not need to write an article. Yet with digital, the instant feedback on the monitor can tell you immediately if you are steady enough. In addition digital will let your customize your handholding ability for a particular shooting session.

GOOD NEWS

I have been able to handhold at 1/2 second to get quite clear and sharp photos. The general rule of thumb used to be that 1/30 second was the minimum with a normal lens but with my digital camera I have gained 4 stops over what I was able to do with film.

Look at the example photos at the beginning of this article. For this test shot I chose fabric with a detailed pattern -- the fine detail makes it easy to detect any blur or camera shake. This was taken with a 1/2 second shutter speed and shot handheld at about an 87mm (35mm equivalent) focal length. If you download this copyrighted shot for your personal use only, you can view the EXIF data. From Rick Doble's book: Experimental Digital Photography (Lark Books/Sterling Publishing, New York/London, 2010) -- see a description of the book at the bottom of this page.

WHAT'S THE CATCH?

Unfortunately there is no absolute calculation that will work in every situation. In fact you must customize your handholding shutter speed for each picture session. This means you will have to do a few quick tests at the beginning of each session -- starting with a shutter speed that has worked in the past and then going up and down several shutter speed settings. Finally you will need to view and judge the results on the LCD monitor at the back of your camera. But even then there's a trick you need to know which I'll discuss in a future article.

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