Tips on Keeping your Hands Steady

HK skyline. Hand-held shot taken by Sherwin Dy.

Tremors can really spoil a picture at times. I mean, how many of you have pictures that could have turned out better if only you had held your hand steady? Not unless you have a physical construction of a rock, holding you cam steady can be a challenge. It still a challenge for me, by the way. How many of us asked the question “Hey, why is this picture blurry?” while looking at the LCD screen on our camera. I know I have. In my on-again, off-again hobby of photography, I’ve continuously looked for ways on how to keep my hands (and body) steady to reduce he likelihood of camera shake that can result in a blurry picture. I would like to share them with you.

Get a Firm and Correct Grip

Perhaps the most basic solution to eliminate camera shake is to have a firm and correct grip on your camera. You’d be surprised on how much this can reduce camera shake. While there’s really no professionally recommended way on how to correctly hold a camera, the best way is to hold your cam using both of your hands. Unless you’re hands are totally without tremor, it’s not advisable that you take a picture by holding the cam only with one hand unless your shooting situation requires you to take the shot using one hand.

If you have a point-and-shoot cam, you need to grasp the camera firmly on both sides with both of your hands. For D/SLR users, you could do this (hold the cam at both sides) only when you have made the proper adjustments with your lens. However, it would be best if you hold your SLR cam body with your dominant hand, while your non-dominant hand would support provide additional firm support by holding the lens. For point-and-shoot cam users, be careful so that your fingers don’t cover the viewfinder, the flash or the lens.

Try to also avoid white-knuckle grips. Similar with pistol and rifle shooting,
white-knuckle grips won’t work with photography. You’d know when you have this kind of grip when you see that the knuckles in your hands have already turned white due to the force that you’re exerting through your grip. White knuckle grips would never eliminate camera shake. Rather it can be the cause of camera shake. Why? Obvious reason – your hands would get tired and when they do, you’d definitely experience hand tremor. Also, the more force you exert, the more tremor your hand will produce

Arms and Body Steady

Once you get your grip corrected, it’s time for you to hold your body steady for your shot. If you’re using the viewfinder, brace the camera firmly against your face. You also need to keep your arms and your body steady.
For your arms, don’t shoot like you’re flying – elbows out. Always place your elbows firmly placed against your body – not to the sides, but to the front. Use your arms as a bipod of sorts. The steadier you can make your arms, the less chance that the camera would move.

Aside from your arms, you would also need to pay attention on your stance while taking your shot. For example, if you’re taking a photo standing up, it would be better if you would have both legs apart (shoulder width) rather than to have both legs together. This provides more stability. It is also not advisable to take a picture when you’re practically standing on one leg. When you’re taking your photo while standing on an uneven surface, try to find the balance where your weight is distributed evenly between both legs.

If you’re the kind of person who likes to take pictures where you have one leg in front of the other, it would be better if you can take the photo while leaning a bit forward with either your weight equally distributed between both legs or have the front leg bear a bit more of the weight. This is a much stable position compared to having part or all of your weight on your back leg. For those who are hand-gun enthusiast, you can experiment on how you can adapt the classic Weaver Stance to your photo shooting activities.

There are times when your subject would be low or close to ground. Therefore, you need to lower yourself near your subject to take a picture. This is most true for macro shots of flowers and plants. When taking pictures of subjects that are close to the ground, don’t do the squat routine and have all your weight rest on your heel or on your toes. This position is quite unstable and would cause your camera to shake. Instead, you can either kneel while resting your butt on your heel or sit-down in a lotus position. Better if you can lie prone to the ground. When you’re either kneeling or in a lotus position, you would still need to brace your elbows firmly against your body. If you’re in a prone position, brace your elbows on the ground. Some words of advice: these “stances” might cause some discomfort. Also, these do not guarantee the elimination of camera shake. However, these positions are fare more stable compared to the squat position. Comfort of course is a subjective word.

Brace It

There are several ways where you can brace your body (and camera) for a steady shot. Of course, the best way would be to use a tripod but you won’t always have a tripod handy. Here are some of the things that you can do to brace your body (and your cam) for that steady shot:

* If there is a wall behind you or on your side, you can lean against it to make your shooting a bit more steady.
* While taking pictures of birds or plants on a forested area, you can lean against a tree trunk or steady your arms by placing it in top of a low-lying branch.

Okay, so there you go. Mind you, all of these would take some getting used to, not to mention, practice so that steadying your self for a shot becomes second nature to you. You can invent your own stance or grip but the most important thing is to arrive at a position where you can always take steady, camera-shake free shots consistently.

Happy shooting!