6 Tips for Avoiding Camera Shake

‘Photographer’ by thibanphoto

Any photographer will understand the difficulties of dealing with camera shake. Whether lighting is dim or you’re zoomed in, a slight movement while the shutter is open could ruin your whole photo.
The clear solution is to use a tripod or to rest your camera on a steady object. But what if you’ve got nothing to lean on, or you’ve left your tripod at home?
Here are a few quick tips to help you avoid camera shake.

1. Keep your camera close. Look through the viewfinder

If you hold your camera far away from your body with your arms stretched as far as they can go, then a tiny movement will be amplified, thus resulting in a blury photo. If however you hold your camera close and look through the viewfinder then slight movements won’t matter as much. Also, holding your camera closer to your body will improve your balance, and even though it’s only a slight improvement, it really does count towards reducing that camera shake.

2. Your elbows are perfect tripods

Lie on your stomach with your elbows on the ground and look through the viewfinder. By doing this, your elbows will act as the perfect support for your camera and significantly reduce camera shake.
If however you can’t lie on the ground or you’re wearing your good shirt, leaning down on one knee with an elbow resting on your knee can also be beneficial.

3. Pretend it’s a machine gun

The ‘Machine Gun Hold’ is quite a popular ‘trick of the trade’. Place your left hand on your right shoulder, and simply rest the camera on your arm.

4. Hold your breath

The movements made by your body while breathing can actually have an impact on your photos. In order to avoid this, simply hold your breath for the duration of the shot. If you’re shooting with a 30 second shutter speed though I wouldn’t recommend this. If that’s the case, just get a tripod.

5. Use the 2 second countdown timer

The simple action of pushing the shutter button can cause a significant amount of movement. Thankfully, many cameras have a two second countdown timer to avoid blur as a result of pressing the button. If your camera doesn’t have the two second countdown timer then you could use the ten second timer instead. It may be a long time to wait, but it will help to keep your camera as steady as possible.

6. Hold onto that lens

This doesn’t apply if you’re using a point and shoot with a small lens. If you’re using an SLR with a long or heavy lens, then placing a hand towards the end of the lens can be a great way to avoid camera shake.

That’s pretty much it. As a night and evening photography enthusiast, I always used to struggle with camera shake. These tips though really have helped me out, and hopefully they’ll help you out too.
If you’ve got any more tips, feel free to share them in the comments. Good luck!