How To Properly Hold a Camera

Danno

Senior Member
Part of the joys of post-stroke life is the shakes. It is not always bad, but it can become quite annoying and a Tripod or Monopod are not always convenient.

This week I read a post on Photography Life regarding holding technics. Most I was familiar with and am already doing. However, I did see a stance that I had not seen before. It required a battery grip, (which I do have), and resting the camera on my shoulder.

It will take some practice, but it is helping steady my camera more effectively, especially with the 70-200 f 2.8 lens.

Thought I would share the article.

https://photographylife.com/how-to-hold-a-camera
 

nikonpup

Senior Member
in a couple of shots you will notice he is shooting with his left eye. This will give you support even without a battery grip. I find shooting with my left eye more comfortable for me.
 

Danno

Senior Member
in a couple of shots you will notice he is shooting with his left eye. This will give you support even without a battery grip. I find shooting with my left eye more comfortable for me.

That is a really good point. It is such a habit to use my right eye. This should help in a couple ways because my dominant eye changed to my left after the stroke...

Thank you for pointing that out NP.
 

cwgrizz

Senior Member
Challenge Team
Thanks Danno, It is interesting how many of these techniques that I used because I carried them over from my shooting of rifles and pistols.
 

RocketCowboy

Senior Member
in a couple of shots you will notice he is shooting with his left eye. This will give you support even without a battery grip. I find shooting with my left eye more comfortable for me.

Good point! I'm right hand dominant but left eye dominant. Sometimes it's those little things that all affect the outcome, that we don't always think about.
 

Danno

Senior Member
Well, I experimented a bit today with the 70-200 after a brisk, (brisk for me), walk with the dog. I took basically the same shot one at 1/1200 Shutter and the other at 640. I still need to practice some, but I used the left eye like @nikonpup and @RocketCowboy suggested, and I used my strap to put tension on the camera, like my rifle sling
technique as @cwgrizz suggested.

They still need work... But I cropped these almost to 1:1 and the improvement is noticeable to me. All I did for processing was run them through Nik Define2.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I really think I have something to work with now. Still a small bit of camera motion, but nothing like it was.


Test Hold-1023-Edit.jpg
Test Hold-1018-Edit.jpg
 

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
Interesting video--lots of good info. Thanks for sharing.

If your lenses have 2 different types of VR, try the Active VR option (or whatever it is called). It is for gross movements according to Nikon. Normally it is used if riding on a boat or something similar. Since I have forearm tendonitis, I've found the Active VR mode works better with less blur than the Normal VR. Many people will tell you not to do it. All I'm saying is to experiment. Take photos using both types of VR and see if one consistently works better for you.
 

Danno

Senior Member
Never seen that shoulder thing before either. Tried it for a laugh and was quite surprised how natural it felt

It surprised me as well. I am a pretty big guy, but it is pretty comfortable. I practiced a bit more today and I am seeing some improvement. I used the 70-200 2.8 and got several keepers. Used my left eye as well.
 
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