Telephoto hand holding tips needed.

[bentcountershaft]

Hi folks. I've been googling different holding techniques for a telephoto lens because I recently picked up a 70-200 2.8 IS. I like it but despite the IS and good shutter speed (1/500 and slightly ablove) I'm a more than a bit inconsistent with it. I'm not the kind of person to blame my equipment as I know there's a 99.9% chance it's me anyway and since the biggest lens I've shot with before this was my 24-70 I figure it's got to be my technique. Well, thanks to google and the overabundance of crap on the internet I've found some pretty varied and mostly useless help. I'm hoping to get a few opinions on what you folks do and how/why you think it works.

Here's some hopefully pertinent info:

I haven't adopted any certain technique yet, I keep trying new things so that may be part of my problem.

Body is a Rebel T1i.

Been shooting less than a year.

Biggest problem I've had was at a baseball game. I never shoot sports but decided to try it since I just got the lens failed for the most part. I first shot in servo mode but switched to spot due to lack of success. Of course spot didn't help anything.

I seem to have better luck pointing up for some reason. Had a decent moon shot recently. I supported the lens with my fingers under the lens body and thumb wrapped up toward the top on the left side. Shooting while holding the lens at/near near horizontal seems to give me trouble and the opposite hand hold feels more natural there.

That's all I can think of so far so if anyone has some advice I'd really appreciate it. Photos or vids demonstrating the technique would be best if possible. I'll see if I can dig up some example photos.

Edited to add: At the baseball game I was using pretty fast shutter speeds, mostly 1/1250 and up.

 

[tirediron]

I position my left hand under the end of the lens barrel nearest the front element and grip the right side of the body and operate the shutter-release with my right. Form a triangle with your left arm so that your elbow is tight against your mid-section (or wherever it naturally rests) and remember to keep your shutter speed up. You should be fine, but whenever possible, I use a monopod or tripod to support larger/longer glass.

 

[Derrel]

Wrapping the camera's strap firmly around your right hand, quite tightly, can help. Also, shooting in Continuous Drive mode can help eliminate shutter button pressing jerkiness, so firing series of three-shot bursts will often yield at least one good shot where the shutter release was not pressed, but merely 'fired' on shot 2 or 3 after the initial press. Often, in a longer sequence of shots, say 10 shots, there will be 2 or 3 or even 4 pretty good shots; there is sort of a spectrum of blurriness--really bad blurring, not so bad yet still unusable, minimal, to steady, to rock-steady and absolutely zero blur. But, to get to rock-steady, often times, it's necessary to shoot many more frames than if the shutter speed is high and conditions are good to ideal.

 

[gsgary]

I think you are getting a bit mixed up, first your said you shot in servo ( an auto focus setting) then you said you shot in spot ( an exposure metering mode). The way i steady myself is to hold under the lens and pull my elbow into my stomach and tight to my side

 

[bentcountershaft]

You're right Gary, sorry. I have a bad habit of referring to OneShot as spot for some reason.

Derrell you may be on to something with the shutter button. I'm generally always in continuous drive mode but for some reason I still do individual button pushes for each snap. I thought at those speeds it wouldn't make much difference.

I'll definitely try the supporting triangle with my arm like you guys described. I think I have a tendency to let my elbow point out away from me and that probably is doing me in. It's hard to know exactly what your body is doing without really concentrating on it, so I guess I need to just practice on some shots that don't really matter so I pay more attention to process than subject.

Thanks to you guys for the tips.

 

[icassell]

If you're averse to using a tripod, you might also consider something like this:

A Review Of The  BushHawk Shoulder Camera Mount by Michael Furtman

 

[KmH]

Use a tripod or monopod whenever possible.

Are you shooting standing up? If so, stand with your left foot somewhat in front of the right foot and put more weight on the left foot, but don't lean forward.
If you're shooting sports you need to be down, and have the lens axis stomach to chest high relative to the players. That means being down on a knee, sitting on a Walkstool or folding chair, or sitting on the ground. I'm often on a knee with my butt on a Walkstool.

My left hand goes under the lens barrel so it is under the lens/camera balance point in such a way I can still operate the zoom ring, and both my upper arms are tight against my sides.

I set up so I just rotate at the waist as much as possible without moving my feet.

 

[Patrice]

Might also help to steady your breathing and to pause ever slightly your exhalation as you press the shutter.

 

[bentcountershaft]

Thanks for the replies and tips folks. I played for a few minutes in the back yard just to see what I'm doing and I'm pretty well doing everything wrong, so I'll be making a concentrated effort to correct things.

I do have a tripod but I've only used it once so far with that lens. I really liked the results though of using a telephoto on a landscape/cityscape so I plan to do that a lot. I'll look into a monopod for Christmas for zoo trips and walk around type stuff.