Alright so in most cases I take my pictures handheld to be a little bit more flexible in all kind of situations. But yeah sometimes a tripod can be extremely helpful to take images but currently I mostly try to avoid that. And thats why I want to share some tips and tricks to get better results while taking photos handheld.

Handheld Photography Tips

So let’s get started with the first one and this is all about stabilization.

Stabilization

Especially if you walk around in the nature for example you always have this little movement in your hands. And since you don’t use a tripod your camera will move around too.
And this movement can actually be really annoying because it is way more likely that your image will turn out blurry because of that. So what I highly recommend is to use all kind of options to stabilize your camera and body. As an example always try to use both hands. So one holds the camera and the other one holds the lens or try to stabilize your own body by leaning on a tree. This makes it way easier to take sharp photos handheld so if you notice that this movement affects your images, actually try to include that in your workflow.

Features

Another tip that I want to give you is to use the right camera features. Currently more and more cameras uses new features like IBIS or at least digital stabilization and the lens IS. These are features that you can use to take sharper images because in this case your camera tries to reduce this shakiness while taking photos. 

As I already mentioned there are multiple options here. 

  • The first one is IBIS. In this case your camera body uses a feature to move the sensor a little bit to reduce this shakiness. In my opinion thats one of the best features and since I’m using that it is way easier to take sharp images.
  • The second one is the digital stabilization. In this cases the overall picture frame is cropped in a little bit to create a small headroom in your frame that can be used to reduce this shakiness effect.
     
  • The third option is the lens IS. There is always a little switch on your lens that you can activate to use this feature. I highly recommend to use this feature especially in combination with those other features like IBIS because in this case they actually work together to get the best result. So definitely don’t waste any options here if your camera or lens can use these features.

Short Lenses

But now let’s move on with the next tip and this one is all about your lens. And no I’m not talking about any features or stuff like that here I’m talking about the size and range of your lens.

Especially if you take photos with a huge and heavy lens like a 70-200 2.8 as an example this can be tough after some time. And if you are exhausted it will push these effects that we already talked about even more. So you can’t really stabilize the camera anymore which will lead to more movement and a possible blurry image.

But if you use a small 35mm (which is not that heavy) it is way easier to stabilize the camera for a long period of time. So if you don’t need to use a huge lens actually switch to a smaller and lighter version.

Burst Mode

The next one is about your shooting mode. Of course basically you just take a photo and thats it but especially if you take photos handheld the burst mode can be really helpful. If you want to take a photo you need to press a button and again that means something is moving around. So if you just take one picture it is possible that this will affect your one single image but if you use the burst mode you take multiple images so it is way more likely that the second or third one will be way better because of the missing movement. So maybe think about to use the burst mode as your standard mode to increase the chance to get better results.

Shutter Speed.

And the last tip is to actually use a way faster shutter speed. So if I take photos handheld I mostly start at around 125 for some test shots and right after that I double check my images. If my images are blurry I increase the shutter speed until I get the result that I want to have. Especially if it is windy outside you need to use a fast shutter speed to get this freeze motion effect and I really like to use this effect in most cases when I’m out there to get crispy detailed shots and to be way more flexible if something is moving around. So yeah you can use all kind of great settings, plan your photo and all kind of stuff like that but if you use the wrong shutter speed that is way to slow the overall image will be blurry because your camera needs way too much time to take the image. So I highly recommend to keep that in your mind because it’s actually really annoying if you have taken a great photo but it turns out blurry because of such a bad mistake.

Stay Frosty!

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