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How to Properly Hold a Camera 109

LAST UPDATED ON FEBRUARY 16, 2017 BY NASIM MANSUROV — 6 COMMENTS Like

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When taking pictures, one of the biggest frustrations one can experience is camera shake, which often happens as a result of the way the camera is held at
lower shutter speeds. Properly hand-holding a camera can drastically reduce human-induced camera shake and result in many more sharp images and
keepers. In this article, we will discuss a few different techniques to hold a camera, which will hopefully reduce and potentially even eliminate unwanted
blurry images when you are shooting in the Zeld.

As you may already know, many cameras today come with speciZc features to help avoid the dreaded camera shake. Some cameras have image
stabilization built directly into the camera sensor, while others might have image stabilization available on the lens, and some even combine camera and
lens stabilization to get the best of the two worlds. In addition, many modern cameras today come with the ability to automatically control the camera ISO
(often referred to as “Auto ISO”) in order to keep the shutter speed fast enough for the focal length one is using (for more details see reciprocal rule). While
using such features can certainly help in reducing camera shake, it does not hurt to take additional measures to learn how to properly hand-hold a camera
and that’s exactly what we are going to do next!

1) What is Camera Shake?

Camera shake occurs when the camera is unintentionally moved while the shutter speed of the camera is too low to capture a perfectly still image. The
resulting image either looks blurry, or shows traces of “dragging” of the subjects, where multiple outlines could be visible around the subjects. Camera
shake due to slow shutter speed typically takes place in low-light conditions when there is not enough light for the camera to yield a sufZciently bright
image, or when exposure settings are set up incorrectly. For example, it is often needed to open up lens aperture as much as possible and increase camera
ISO when shooting in indoor environments, because the amount of ambient light is too low. And when there is not enough light, the camera’s shutter speed
must be slowed down to yield a properly exposed image (to understand the relationship between the three exposure variables, please see our article on
Exposure Triangle).

2) The Relationship Between Shutter Speed and Focal Length: The Reciprocal Rule
If the shutter speed is too low for a given focal length of the lens, even slight movements to the camera can result in camera shake. It is important to
understand the relationship between shutter speed and focal length in photography – as focal length increases, one has to simultaneously increase the
shutter speed in order to avoid blur caused by from camera shake. Take a look at the below illustration:

You can see how the potential for camera shake is increased with the increase in focal length. The red-dotted lines that represent the potential limit of how much the camera can
shake when hand-held have a much shorter span at 80mm than at 400mm. That’s because camera shake is magniZed with increase in focal length.

As you can see, the longer the focal length of a lens, the bigger the likelihood of seeing camera shake, since every movement is so much more ampliZed. If
one understands this relationship well in practice, it is possible to avoid camera shake by keeping the shutter speed equal to the focal length of a lens, which
is known as the Reciprocal Rule (I highly recommend that you give this article a read, since everything is explained in detail there).

Please keep in mind that the reciprocal rule is only a guideline to avoid camera shake – if one does a poor job at hand-holding a camera, much faster shutter
speeds might be required in order to keep blur out of images. Therefore, it is important to know how to properly hand-hold a camera!

3) Hand-Holding Techniques
Let’s talk about a few hand-holding techniques that will help you eliminating camera shake and yielding sharp images. Here is a video clip excerpt from our
PL Level 1: Photography Basics course, where John and I cover a few different hand-holding techniques that help avoid camera shake:

How to Properly Hold a Camera

As you can see, you can take a few simple steps to make sure that your camera is steady on your hands.
3.1) How to Hold a Camera in Standing Position

When you are in a regular standing position, use the below tips to avoid camera shake:

1. Place your feet perpendicular to your subject: when hand-holding a camera, you typically have more balance when standing perpendicular to your
subject, since there is less back and forth movement of your body compared to when standing parallel to your subject. If you have ever shot with an
automatic rihe, you know that this standing position works very well, since there is quite a bit of recoil caused by the gun and standing sideways
makes it easier to absorb each shot. So if you apply the same principle to shooting with a camera, it will surely work!
2. Push your elbows into your sides: you want to avoid being in a “happing” position with your elbows, because they will constantly move, causing your
hands to move as well. Instead, tuck your elbows in and rest them against your body. Your body will serve as a resting spot for your elbows, which will
not only help stabilize your hands, but also let them rest better when holding heavy gear.
3. Hold camera at balance point: with every camera and lens combination, there is always going to be a point at which the camera setup won’t be
neither front nor back-heavy. If you put your hand right at this point and let the camera rest on it, you will achieve good balance, which will make it
easier to hand-hold the camera for extended periods of time, since you don’t have to Zght the weight on either side of the hand.
4. Hold camera to your face: while some of us might prefer to use the back of the camera screen to frame images, shooting with your arms extended is
always going to introduce more camera shake. If your camera has a viewZnder, you will Znd that holding the camera to your face will make it easier to
stabilize the setup.
5. Push the camera to your head: once your arms are close to your body and fully tucked in, you can help stabilize the camera even more by slightly
pushing the camera against your head.
6. Bonus tip – breathe out right before squeezing the shutter release: Again, this trick is known to those who have served in the military or have
experience shooting long-range rihes. If you slowly breathe out right before squeezing the shutter release, you have a higher chance of avoiding
camera shake, because your body is not moving as much as it does when you heavily breathe.

Here is John showing how to take the above into practice:

3.2) How to Hold a Camera With a Grip

If your camera is equipped with a grip, you can take advantage of a very good technique that is known as the “Joe McNally Grip”. This technique was
revealed by one of my most favorite portrait photographers Joe McNally many years ago, where he demonstrated the technique of hand-holding the camera
with a grip on his shoulder. This technique works really well, because your shoulders are typically more stable than your hands, so if you rest your camera on
one of your shoulders, you can achieve really show shutter speeds without introducing camera shake. Here is what you need to do:

1. You need a camera with a grip: this one is a must, because a regular camera is too short for you to be able to rest it on your shoulder while you are
trying to look through the viewZnder. The grip solves this problem.
2. Rest the left corner of the grip on your left shoulder: put the corner of the grip to a comfortable area of your shoulder. I personally prefer putting the
corner of the grip on the softer front side of my left shoulder, but you should experiment and see where the camera rests comfortably for you.
3. Look through the viewBnder with your left eye: if you are used to look through the viewZnder with your right eye this one might take some time to get
used to.
4. Wrap your left hand over your right hand: you don’t want your left hand just dangling off your body – you want to wrap it over your right hand, which
helps push the camera further into your shoulder for extra stability.
5. Push the camera to your head and breathe out: same tips as the previous technique.

Here is how it should look from the side:

I personally found this technique to be very useful in situations where I have to use very slow shutter speeds without having to increase ISO or open up my
aperture. If you do everything right, you should be able to achieve ridiculously slow shutter speeds – I have once managed to take a full second exposure
without camera shake with the Joe McNally grip!

3.3) How to Hold Telephoto Lenses

The technique for hand-holding telephoto lenses can be slightly different, because there is much more weight on the front of the camera. For the most part
though, you will be doing similar things as when holding a regular setup:

1. Detach or reverse lens foot: heavy telephoto lenses typically come with the own tripod feet, because they are too heavy to be dangling off the camera
mount. I personally never found it comfortable to hand-hold lenses by holding them by the tripod feet, especially when shooting for extended periods
of time (try doing that on a full day wedding!). Not only will it cause the camera to move left and right, but it will also bruise up your hands. Instead,
either remove the tripod foot completely (if you don’t use it), or reverse the lens foot so that it faces up.
2. Find the best balance point: with the lens foot reversed, you can comfortably Znd the area where the lens and camera perfectly balance on your hand.
3. Place your feet perpendicular to your subject: same as above, but becomes even more important with longer telephoto lenses, since the setup is
heavier.
4. Push your elbows into your sides: again, you want your hands tucked in tight to your body to avoid camera shake.
5. Push the camera to your head and breathe out: same tips as the previous technique.

I have been using this technique for many years when shooting with 70-200mm and longer telephoto lenses and it has worked really well for me. Here is
yours truly demonstrating the technique in the video:

3.4) Stabilization by Leaning

Another great way to signiZcantly reduce camera shake when hand-holding a lens is to Znd a stable object that you can lean against, such as a tree, a wall
or a car. This completely eliminates the potential to rock back and forth when taking a picture, thus allowing one to shoot at very low shutter speeds. Not
much to add to this technique – make sure that you still have your hands tucked in, with the camera pushing against your head for extra stability. Stabilizing
your breathing will also help in getting a sharper image, so give it a try!

In the above image, I am leaning against a tree while photographing John with an 85mm lens at around 1/50th of a second, which worked out great to get a
very sharp image.

3.5) How to Hand-Hold Camera While Sitting

One technique that we did not cover in the video is how to hand-hold a camera while sitting on the ground. While many of us rarely use this technique, it can
be very useful in practice when photographing subjects from a lower angle, such as when photographing children. Once again, if you have weapon
experience, you already know the best postures for proper hand-holding – either pushing your elbows against your knees while sitting while holding the
camera in the center, or using the kneeling position, with the left elbow resting on your left knee, while your right knee is on the ground. Both techniques
work really well, although many would probably prefer the kneeling position more to the sitting position to keep clothes clean.

4) Image Stabilization Considerations

Keep in mind that when shooting with cameras and lenses that have built-in image stabilization, the reciprocal rule and the techniques discussed above
might apply slightly differently. First of all, image stabilization can do a tremendous job in reducing camera shake by compensating for different unwanted
movements and motions, sometimes by up to 3-4 stops, which is a lot! So if you Znd yourself struggling to take sharp images at low shutter speeds and you
 have an image stabilization feature, make sure to turn it on. By default, you should always have image stabilization turned on when shooting hand-held,
unless your shutter speeds are so fast that you don’t need it (in some cases when using shutter speeds faster than the focal length of the lens, image
stabilization might actually work against you). Also, when shooting hand-held with telephoto lenses that have image stabilization, you should make sure to
stabilize the setup Zrst by half-pressing the shutter and letting image stabilization kick in for a second or two before taking a picture, as described in this
article.

5) Dealing with Camera Shake on a Tripod

Although camera shake is commonly experienced when shooting hand-held, it can also happen when shooting from a tripod, where such factors as wind,
tripod stability and shutter release by hand can cause unwanted movements. We have already written a detailed guide on how to reduce camera shake on a
tripod, so please give that article a read – there is plenty of information there!

Since we as photographers always strive to capture sharp photographs with plenty of detail, camera shake can be very frustrating to deal with, so I hope you
found the above article useful. If you have any other tips to avoid camera shake when hand-holding lenses, please let us know in the comments section
below!

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FILED UNDER: PHOTOGRAPHY TECHNIQUES

TAGGED WITH: APERTURE, CAMERA SHAKE, ISO, PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS, SHUTTER SPEED, TELEPHOTO LENS, TIPS FOR BEGINNERS

About Nasim Mansurov

Nasim Mansurov is a professional photographer based out of Denver, Colorado. He is the author and founder of Photography Life, along
with a number of other online resources. Read more about Nasim here.

Comments
 1) Gus Potenza
FEBRUARY 16, 2017 AT 2:13 AM

Great topic! One thing you haven’t mentioned that I often use in low light situations is to turn on the 2 or 10 seconds Timer instead of pulling the trigger
which sometimes results in shake already. The countdown also helps controlling the breathing to the exact moment of the shot.
Cheers

Reply

2) Ikhlaque Shah
FEBRUARY 16, 2017 AT 2:17 AM

Some very useful tips Nasim, thanks and kept up the good work.

Reply

3) Ranjan Kumar Mandal

FEBRUARY 16, 2017 AT 2:23 AM

Hi Nasim, its nice to read this topic. Although it is most common yet back to basics always help. Joe MCNally technique is really interesting & I will deZnitely
try this out as I have a battery grip on my camera. I wouyld like to know that if I want to use the normal technique of holding camera( with battery grip) then
how shall I held the lens/ camera part with my left hand ?….as the battery grip makes the bottom portion of the camera uneven, I often Znd it intriguing to
position my left palm & Zngers ! I hope your guidelines on this aspect.

Reply Report user

3.1) Ranjan Kumar Mandal

FEBRUARY 16, 2017 AT 2:24 AM

Hi Nasim, its nice to read this topic. Although it is most common yet back to basics always help. Joe MCNally technique is really interesting & I will
deZnitely try this out as I have a battery grip on my camera. I wouyld like to know that if I want to use the normal technique of holding camera( with
battery grip) then how shall I held the lens/ camera part with my left hand ?….as the battery grip makes the bottom portion of the camera uneven, I often
Znd it intriguing to position my left palm & Zngers ! I hope your guidelines on this aspect.

Reply Report user

4) Judit
FEBRUARY 16, 2017 AT 3:15 AM

Good tips! I Znd that the reciprocal rule doesn’t really work for me in practice. Using my 35mm lens, I can’t take sharp pictures with 1/30-1/40 – actually, I
never really go under 1/100, to be on the safe side. Maybe I could improve on this with a little bit of practice.

Reply Report user

 5) Tobias
FEBRUARY 16, 2017 AT 4:08 AM

I wish the whole universe would be explained by PL ;-)

Reply

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