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1992-02-26
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Stability while hand holding a camera
by James J. Eager
"Always use a tripod." Good advice that I have seen and
followed countless times. But, what can you do when the tripod
can't be used or isn't available? The purpose of this article is
to pass on some tips on how to hold your camera stable when the
tripod isn't usable.
You are in a crowd at Disneyworld, and want to shoot the
fireworks going off around the castle in the Magic Kingdom. You
come prepared to a museum with flash and battery pack, and find
out that the use of flash is not allowed in the museum. You are
at an air show where the aircraft go through their paces at
locations that change second by second. You want to track the
space shuttle into the sky as it ascends.
Taking a tripod into Disney is asking to get trampled upon,
unless you are working with Disney security. At night, with the
fireworks, it's even worse because no one is watching where they
step.
You are going on a tour, and stopping only a few minutes at
each point. Setting up a tripod takes too long, and in the
Mexican state parks, you must have a special permit to even use
one. You arrive at the first stop on the tour, which is a
museum. You unpack and mount your flash. The security guard
comes over and tells you "No Flash", in broken English. To top
it off, you already have a partially shot roll in the camera, at
100 ASA.
An air show is a dynamic event, and the pilots make up much
of it as they go along. Aircraft are moving by at a minimum of
around 200 miles per hour, and some at over 500 miles per hour.
If you are lucky enough to see a Harrier perform, they even go
straight up and down.
If you write to NASA, you can get a pass to watch a space
shuttle launch from inside the Space Center. This puts one close
enough that a lens of the 800 - 1000 mm range is long enough to
track the shuttle as it ascends upwards. You have enough time to
set up the initial shot on a tripod, (in fact, you may have 2 set
up that way) but, short of some joystick gizmo and lots of
electronics, you have to shoot the rest hand held. A quick
release mount works very well for the change over.
What do all of these have in common? Whether you want to or
not, you can't use a tripod, and there isn't a stable support to
lean against. None of the classes or articles I have seen ever
mention situations like this. However, most of this training can
be readily acquired from rifle shooting courses.
First, your feet. Decide what you are going to shoot and
plant your feet about shoulder width apart, with each foot
roughly parallel with the film plane. This will leave your body
facing 90 degrees away from your subject! (Direction will depend
on whether you are right handed or left, and upon the placement
of controls on your particular camera). Do not lock your knees,
or otherwise stiffen your body.
x x x │ x
x x x x x x │ x x
x x x x x x │ x x
x x x x x x │ x x
x x x x x x │ x x
─────────────────> To Subject x x │ x x
x x x x x x │ x x
x x x x x x │ x x
x x x x x x │ x x
x x x x x x │ x x
x x x │ x
│
│
V
To Subject
Correct Wrong!
Why place your feet perpendicular? The human foot and leg is
designed to bend forward and back. However, they are not
designed to bend sideways. By shooting this way, you make use of
the natural support of the body.
Next, find the balance point of your camera and lens. If the
lens has a tripod mount, (not the mount on the body), then that
is the balance point, otherwise use a close guess. Place this
balance point on the heel of your left hand, and wrap your
fingers around the lens as necessary. On some lenses you can
reach the zoom and other controls this way. Pull the left elbow
in close to your body, so that the entire upper portion of the
arm is against your body.
Without moving your elbow away from your body, move your head
into position to see thru the viewfinder and your right hand into
position to handle the shutter release of the camera. With a
little practice, this will become a fairly comfortable shooting
position.
Breathing is also important when shooting hand held. Take 1
or 2 deep breaths and let them out. Take another and let out
about half of it. Then, gently squeeze that shutter release.
Even with all of this, shoot some extras of anything
important, because you can't tell how well you did until later,
after its too late to go back for more. If the light is a
problem, then you need to bracket as well as double up. However,
in most cases where this is true, you are going to have to trust
your meter to give you an accurate reading and go with it.
If you have the time to choose between 2 or more equivalent
camera and lens combinations for this kind of work, choose the
HEAVIER combination. That's right. As crazy as it sounds, the
heavier combination is more stable in this kind of work. In
rifle shooting, match grade rifles are much heavier than their
sporting cousins.
A shutter release on the front of the camera body helps a lot
in these situations, but many cameras don't have this feature.
If you are shooting a sequence of photos, a motor drive or a
reverse film advance, (starts from front and ends in back) is
necessary, to cut down the time between shots, and to keep the
camera at your eye.
Like anything else, this position will take some getting used
to, but you can practice it until it feels natural to you. Using
this technique I have managed to go as far as 1/8 of a second
handheld with a 100mm lens, and no support. While I expected
trouble at that level, (enough so that I doubled up the shots)
none materialized.