Stability - making yourself a tripod versus using one

[astroNikon]

IMO, VR is over-rated.

Nikon VR explained

The first and most important rule of VR is this: never turn VR on unless it's actually needed.

Wow, I'm going to have to reread that several more times.

I did an experiment the other week. Sitting on my porch steps and taking pictures of my car hubcap Ford emblem as I was trying to stabilize the camera better by hand. Consistently with the VR ON my 18-105 kit lens the image was very very nice. I kept having shakes on my 24-85 .. with all else being equal on focal length, aperture, etc.

I'm glad I was never a brain surgeon .. oops, slight slip of the scalpal ....

Of course, on a tripod it was excellent with non-VR. So I've seen the advantages of VR on my simple experiment.

 

[480sparky]

IMO, VR is over-rated.

Nikon VR explained

The first and most important rule of VR is this: never turn VR on unless it's actually needed.

I rarely use VR. In fact, the only lens I use it turned on with is my 70-300, and that's only when I'm shooting action. I turn it off and leave it off on all my other VR lenses.

 

[astroNikon]

Astro, I was questioning your statement about the DOF. Also, none of my lens has any stabilizer .

I was taking a picture of a person in a riverbed. Some very interesting water flows, etc which on it's own was interesting. But I wanted to keep everything but the person out of focus and I like the look of 2.8 or greater for that. When I take pictures, since I'm more of a hack, I tend to take various apertures of the same thing and I always tend to like the 1.8 - 2.8s when I want to maintain focus on people.

I always keep in my head seeing a friends family photos. They are sitting in front of a barn door that has some amazing rust aging. And up front you can see the sharp focused and uncut grass. You eyes first go to the family, then wander to the foreground and background and you tend for forget the people in between. So 3.6 isn't bad I just like the 2.8 and faster.

 

[Derrel]

Good breathing technique is important. So is a soft, very minimal movement shutter release motion. Do not jab at the shutter button, but press it down. On a camera that has a grip-release, like most d-slr's have, kind of "roll" the finger on one edge of the button. I see a number of bad shots that people ask for C&C analysis on, and many times it's easy to see a simple downward mash on the shutter release leads them to move the entire camera and lens downward, causing blurring that shows up as vertical smearing of the image. Sometimes by a lot, sometimes by a little.

A second trick that I use a lot is to fire 3-shot bursts in continuous advance mode, so that there is only ONE press of the shutter button. WHen working at the margins of hand-holdable speeds, often the shutter release action can cause a tiny bit of blurring, so that shot 2 or 3 is often the sharpest. And that's another thing when shooting realllllly slow--blurring is a random event. Out of ten frames, ONE might be very,very sharp, 3 or 4 acceptably sharp, and five pretty blurry. If you really need a good, sharp shot, and the speeds are dicey, you're probably best off to shoot as many as three or four, 3-shot sequences.

 

[astroNikon]

Derrel - what is "grip release" ?

 

[astroNikon]

Just in experimenting right now taking a picture of a newspaper about 8 feet away on a 50mm, and multishoot on and taking 3 shots or more at a time, and trying better arm and breathing technique I'm finding my 1st shoot is massively improved, 2nd is blurry, 3rd is really good.

So I'm going to keep experimenting and trying to improve everything. Thanks for all the tips so far.

 

[Gavjenks]

Love the guy wire rope idea.

Have you considered TWO ropes, one held down by each foot?

 

[astroNikon]

I forgot to mention one of my own solutions that I did last fall. I had my remote in my left and and just pressed that, so no finger pressure on the Camera itself. I need to try that again but I also need to improve my hand holding technique overall anyways.
Thanks all for the tipes

 

[Juga]

You can also set the camera to 'Mirror Lock-up' which will also help to reduce vibration within the camera but very minimally. Every little bit helps just like four quarters makes a dollar.

 

[table1349]

This is what I use....MAKE | How-To: Low-Cost Gyroscopic Camera Stabilizer

 

[480sparky]

Love the guy wire rope idea.

Have you considered TWO ropes, one held down by each foot?

There's a million variations on that theme. You can kneel on the rope, tie it to a rock or exposed tree root or trunk, ask someone you're with to stand on it/them........... anything to secure the end(s).

 

[table1349]

Love the guy wire rope idea.

Have you considered TWO ropes, one held down by each foot?

There's a million variations on that theme. You can kneel on the rope, tie it to a rock or exposed tree root or trunk, ask someone you're with to stand on it/them........... anything to secure the end(s).

Except that with 2 ropes tied to the eyebolt there is only going to be ONE exact position where both ropes apply an equal amount of tension thereby adding to the stability. Other than that, you have the same one rope setup with a dangling piece of rope doing no good. And if think that it is tough shooting hand held, wait till you try finding and holding that one exact position where both ropes do some good. .

 

[480sparky]

Except that with 2 ropes tied to the eyebolt there is only going to be ONE exact position where both ropes apply an equal amount of tension thereby adding to the stability. Other than that, you have the same one rope setup with a dangling piece of rope doing no good. And if think that it is tough shooting hand held, wait till you try finding and holding that one exact position where both ropes do some good. .

Don't tie a knot.... just run the rope through the eyebolt. Problem solved.

 

[oldhippy]

Except that with 2 ropes tied to the eyebolt there is only going to be ONE exact position where both ropes apply an equal amount of tension thereby adding to the stability. Other than that, you have the same one rope setup with a dangling piece of rope doing no good. And if think that it is tough shooting hand held, wait till you try finding and holding that one exact position where both ropes do some good. .

Don't tie a knot.... just run the rope through the eyebolt. Problem solved.

Good logic

 

[480sparky]

Except that with 2 ropes tied to the eyebolt there is only going to be ONE exact position where both ropes apply an equal amount of tension thereby adding to the stability. Other than that, you have the same one rope setup with a dangling piece of rope doing no good. And if think that it is tough shooting hand held, wait till you try finding and holding that one exact position where both ropes do some good. .

Don't tie a knot.... just run the rope through the eyebolt. Problem solved.

Good logic

I are smart.