How to Hold a Camera

By Steve Thomas
The Powerful Photography Coach

When you discover how to hold a camera, your pictures will get better. The development of digital cameras with screens on the back has led to the unfortunate result of people holding the camera at arm’s length to be able to focus on the screen. When you hold a camera away from your body you have probably found that it is difficult to hold the camera still. It doesn’t take much camera movement to give you blurry, disappointing pictures.

Some cameras have a viewfinder instead of or in addition to the screen. Using a viewfinder generally causes people to take sharper pictures because the camera is stabilized since it is touching the face. When using a viewfinder, some people poke their elbows away from their bodies as if they were wings. Both the wings position and the extended arms position are tiring and increase camera movement, making pictures blurry. Besides, other people are more likely to bump into your extended elbows, completely ruining a shot.

A lot of people shoot with their elbows extended. Andrew, the fellow posing for the picture, said "This is so tiring."

How should you hold a camera? Well, assuming that you aren’t using a tripod, the best way to hold a camera is to cup it in your left hand and place your left elbow so it is resting by your tummy. This way you form a very stable platform and can take sharp pictures with longer exposures than you could otherwise. If your camera has a long lens, hold the lens at the point where the camera is balanced in your hand with half the weight of the camera on each side of your hand. At first, this position can feel somewhat awkward.. You will find that if you take the time to develop the habit of holding a camera in this way, your pictures will be consistently clearer.

By holding the camera close with his elbow resting on the table, the camera is stabilized, giving the best chance for a good shot.	He has his left elbow by his side which very effectively uses his whole body to stabilize the camera.

Holding a Camera for Long Exposures
You will have to personally experiment to discover how long an exposure you can successfully handhold. My limit is about 1/30 of a second, and even then I take multiple shots to give me a better chance of getting a clear image. If you are attempting to take a picture at exposure times longer than your personal handheld limit, you will need help. Find something or someone to use to stabilize the camera. Doorways, furniture, edges of walls, poles, a friend’s shoulder are all good things to use. Rest the camera or your arm against your chosen support and shot away. I met one professional photographer who discovered a way that worked well for him. He rested the camera on his left shoulder so he could see through the viewfinder. I asked him how he learned that method. He replied that he had personally come up with it that very evening since he was taking a number of portrait shots outdoors and needed to be sure the camera wouldn’t move for shots that included both flash (for the main subjects) and available light for the interior lights of the home in the background..

In some situations you won’t have something stable to use. In that case you will need to resort to using a Monopod or a Tripod. A monopod is a single-legged support that attaches to the camera’s tripod socket. By resting the foot of the monopod on the floor, ground or furniture you create a stable base for the camera. If you are moving around taking pictures in a relatively low light situation, the monopod is a good tool to take along. If you are taking pictures in a crowded situation, there may not be room for the legs of a tripod to spread out - or people may bump into them. There are limitations to a monopod since you still have to hold the camera and some movement can still occur.

Using the monopod got a stable platform without having to find a way to place the legs of a tripod in the greenery.

Once you get to very long exposures you will need a tripod to keep the camera stable. The tripod forms an unconditionally stable base so exposures can be as long as necessary without camera movement causing blur. If the composition of a picture is critical, I often use a tripod even for short exposure times to make sure the composition stays exactly the way I want it. This is especially true for product photography where an art director may have a very exact idea of how the product should appear in sales brochures.

By using a tripod, Andrew can concentrate on getting the composition he wants without having to hold onto the camera.

Thats it for this lesson. If you have specific questions, please send them to me at steve@goodphotographyinfo.com

Lesson 1 Subject Placement
Lesson 2 Leading Lines
Lesson 3 Light and Shadow
Lesson 4 Point of View
Lesson 5 Available Light
Lesson 6 Outdoor Lighting
Lesson 7 Close-up Photography
Lesson 8 Depth of Field
Lesson 9 Picking a Camera

(c) Steve Thomas 2008 All rights reserved. This is copywrited content and may not be reproduced in any form without the express permission of the author.