Shutter speeds and camera support

Use these straightforward techniques and tips to beat the shakes.

The most common cause of soft shots when you shoot handheld will be camera shake. This means that the camera moves slightly while the scene in front of it is being exposed to the image sensor. We can blame shutter speed for this – in particular the choice of a speed that’s slow enough to capture the movement (under 1/30 sec, for example).

In the hands of a fine-art photographer, intentional camera movement is a useful creative tool, but for anyone aiming to get pin-sharp photographs, unintentional camera movement will be a catastrophe.

While the shutter speed needs to be fast enough, the focal length of your lens also plays a big part in determining how fast the shutter speed should be. There is a straightforward way of making sure you are using a suitable shutter speed, though: the ‘reciprocal rule’ suggests using a shutter speed that’s at least equal to the focal length of the lens. So if you’re shooting at 50mm, try 1/50 sec or more, try 1/200 sec at 200mm and so on.

These settings apply to cameras with a full-frame sensor. If you’re using a camera without one, then you’ll need to take into account the relevant ‘ crop factor’.