Holding the Camera
Holding the camera
VARIOUS HAND POSITIONS
The hand positions illustrated here are aimed to maximize the steadiness of the camera while still leaving access to the controls unfettered. The latter can be especially important in rapidly changing conditions.
HORIZONTAL GRIP
The weight of the camera is distributed equally between the hands.
STANCE
As important to a low light photographer as to a marksman or archer, body and arm position is critical. If possible, use any available support.
HORIZONTAL GRIP, SIDE VIEW
Press both elbows into your chest to improve steadiness.
BATTERY GRIP, HORIZONTAL
Use the additional grip on the battery attachment if there is one.
VERTICAL GRIP
The left hand takes the weight of the camera.
BATTERY PACK, VERTICAL
Bulky battery packs are more difficult to use vertically. Take more weight in right hand.
STANDING POSTURE
Spread your weight between both feet, and place one slightly in front of the other.
KNEELING
This is a more stable solution than standing, but less convenient. Rest on your heel and support your left elbow on your knee.
SQUATTING
In this position you can form a camera platform with your body. Rest your elbows on your knees and lean forward, forming a compact, relaxed structure.
AD HOC SUPPORTS & TELEPHOTOS
Rigidity is more important with a long-focus lens than with any other. Not only is the image magnified, but also the shake, as illustrated here.
NO SUPPORT
The weight rests on both elbows. Place left hand far forward.
AVAILABLE SUPPORT
A camera bag or other object gives a three-point support.
UNDERHAND
Press your left elbow firmly into your chest, supporting the lens weight from below.
UNDERHAND, BATTERY GRIP
The weight is supported by the left hand and leg, the right is free to operate camera.
AVAILABLE SUPPORT
If possible, use any available surface to support the camera. A camera bag can often add extra height or padding.
Steadying Equipment
The idea of handheld shooting, as just discussed, is the freedom to do without a tripod, with its added bulk and weight, and slow setup.
Nevertheless, just as the camera can quickly be steadied against a part of the body, there are various supports, mostly small, that can be brought into use quickly and easily without compromising the freedom to move and shoot. The trade-off between stability on the one hand and lightness and ease of setting up on the other is here skewed heavily toward the latter.
One of the disadvantages of all mounts in this kind of shooting is the time it takes to attach the camera (or lens) and some kind of quick-release plate is important. An L-shaped plate, as shown opposite, allows the camera to be mounted for vertical as well as horizontal format, and when speed is essential this scores strongly over plates that attach the base of the camera only.
Monopods are a long-established design of fast support, and can be used either free-standing for an improvement in the order of a couple of stops, or wedged or propped against something solid for more stability. A ball-and-socket head, which can be used slightly loosened, is probably the most useful mount.
Miniature tripods, also known as mini-pods, have the advantage of being small enough to fit into the side pocket of a shoulder bag, or even a pants pocket. There are several ingenious designs and this kind of tripod works well braced against a wall or any vertical surface, and when the legs are folded together it can also be used as a hand grip.
The camera can be further steadied by applying either compression or tension. Compression typically means pressing the camera against a surface or a part of the body, and this is effective also with a mini-tripod. Miniature supports like this are light in weight and resist torque poorly, so if the camera is left more or less free on the mount, it is quite likely to suffer some camera shake from mirror slap. We’ll go into this in more detail when we look at regular tripods see here. Pressing down on the camera with one hand, or even placing a jacket or shoulder bag on it, improves steadiness. Without a miniature support, an important precaution when resting the camera on a hard surface is to place something slightly soft underneath—a piece of clothing, for example. This will dampen any vibrations from your body or from the mirror.
Tension is the opposite of compression, and equally effective, although it is a little more difficult to put into practice. Essentially, tension needs a strap of some kind. The tension strap works like a monopod in reverse: one foot secures the base of the strap while you pull the camera upwards to steady it. Even the regular camera strap can be put to use, by placing it against something solid and then leaning backwards to make taut the strap. This means first composing and then shooting briefly blind, but works if the camera is placed between railings, for example. In all of this, some improvisation is called for.
Kit bag
Depending on the situation, there are a number of tools you can call upon to steady your shooting.
MB GRIP
Handle screws into tripod socket.
MICROPOD
Small tripod for lightweight cameras.
MONOPOD
Allows you to rest the camera weight on the ground but move fast.
MINI TRIPOD
Allows you to place the camera on objects.
SHOULDER BRACE
A shoulder brace works in a way similar to a gunstock. Pulling back on the front grip transfers even more weight onto the shoulder.
BEAN BAG
Kinesis bean bag “shell” filled with either 2.7kg of polyethylene beads or 0.7kg of buckwheat. With two compartments it can be folded for additional height, as shown.
NOVOFLEX BASICBALL
Fitted with three short ball-tipped rods.
NOVOFLEX MINIPOD
Offers high stability combined with unusual flexibility, achieved by the individually variable angle at which each of the legs can be set. There are preset positions at angles of 30º, 60º, and 90º and it can support equipment weighing up to 22 lbs (10kg).
Stabilizing Technology
Under the names Image Stabilization (Canon) and Vibration Reduction (Nikon), this lens technology, invented in the mid-nineties, is spectacularly useful in low light photography.
The basic principle is straightforward, the execution less so. Camera shake—that is the inability to hold the image steady at slow speeds—results in the focused image moving rapidly on a plane perpendicular to the camera axis. If the lens, or one of its elements, can be made to move in exactly the opposite direction to the shake, the image will be stabilized.
In practice, the special lens is equipped with sensors that can detect the movement, and a microprocessor to analyze it and transmit the necessary information to micromotors. The Nikon VR system, for which there is more published information available, is contained in a unit that contains a floating lens element within the lens assembly. Handheld camera shake takes place on two axes, pitch (up and down) and yaw (side to side), also known as the x and y axes respectively (the z axis, roll, is irrelevant here). Two angular velocity sensors, one for each axis, detect movement and are sampled every 1/1000 second. This data is sent to a microcomputer built into the lens, and from their combined reading, the angular velocity is known for any direction across the plane. The microcomputer calculates the compensation needed in direction and strength, and transmits this to two voice coil motors, one to move the lens element horizontally, the other vertically. (Voice coil motors, or VCM, were originally developed for speaker systems and are wire coils used to move a component back and forth within a magnetic field.) Working together, and controlled by the electric current within the unit’s magnetic field, they compensate for any motion in the vertical plane.
In most cases, the system is activated by lightly pressing the shutter release. As the shutter is pressed for shooting, the motors engage and the viewfinder image jitters as the compensatory movements are made. In the Nikon system, the floating element is centered immediately before exposure so as to allow the most efficient compensation. Canon and Nikon systems vary in how and when this compensation is displayed, and while many photographers find the jittering distracting, it gives a valuable indication of when the compensation has been fully made (the jittering stops). Added sophistications are algorithms for when the camera is mounted on a tripod (camera shake can happen at shutter speeds from around 1/30 sec to half a second because of mirror slap on an SLR) and for deliberate panning. Panning recognition works by sensing gross horizontal movements and discounting them.
The improvements over non-stabilized handholding are in the order of 3 to 5 stops, and the greatest benefit is at longer focal lengths. This does, however, depend on the photographer’s success at holding a camera steady in the first place. Nikon studies with a 200mm lens show that a photographer who can achieve a 70 percent success rate unstabilized at 1/125 sec can expect the same results stabilized at 1/15 sec. Stabilized lenses demand power, although the systems contain means to conserve this. Tests show an average draw of 80 microamps when activated (but not functioning), which is four times that of a digital SLR without stabilization.
Sony, Pentax, and Olympus employ a different approach (albeit applied in slightly different ways), in which the sensor moves to compensate for the shake. The sensor is mounted on a movable platform that can be shifted in the x and y axes by actuators. The considerable advantage of this is that it works with all lenses, and an improvement of between 2.5 to 4 /-stops is claimed. There are disadvantages, however, one being that the effect isn’t obvious through the viewfinder as the lens is not involved, meaning that you see no compensating judder or inertia, although an indicator in the viewfinder shows that the system is functioning.
Lens image stabilization
The lens element in the third example has moved to compensate for the vibration. The yellow line represents the image, which is directed more successfully than the non-stabilized second arrangement.
MOVING SENSOR STABILIZATION
This is the “SteadyShot INSIDE” mechanism featured in the Sony α900, which moves the sensor to compensate for camera shake; it provides up to 4-stop blur reduction.
STABILIZING LENSES
Canon build image-stabilization technology into some of their lenses, such as this 17–85mm zoom lens. The Image Stabilizer branding is clearly visible on the lens barrel.