What would you say is your slowest hand held shutter speed?

[Big Mike]

How do we know you weren't using a tripod or something?

 

[gsgary]

* I meant to put HAND HELD


I recently have been exploring manual shooting and have gotten better at doing so. I would say standing straight up with only my arms supporting the camera i get the sharpest images at 1/20th. I can go a little slower like 1/10 but that doesn't give me that same sharpness i enjoy. I even tried to pull a trick out of the COD book and hold my breath, i guess it helps? What about you?

It all depends what focal length you are using

 

[grafxman]

Some of the photos in the Huguenot Park set at my flickr site were hand held at 1000mm. That's a 150-500mm stabilized Sigma with a doubler. Since I got that lens I haven't used any type of support at all. I used to carry a monopod with me but now it stays in the trunk.

 

[icassell]

I agree with the comments above. I can handhold my 10-20 at very slow shutter speeds, but not my 100-300mm f/4. In fact, I thought I was doing well with sharp images handheld with the large lens and then did a comparison for myself tripod vs. no tripod of the same subject. The camera shake, although minimal, became clearly apparent on the no-tripod images when they were compared to the ones done on the pod.

 

[wgp1987]

I apologize for not elaborating. The longest lens i have right now is my 24-105 and i just walk around with the shutter set to 1/20 and iso 100, then i compensate the aperture if i am in good light. Otherwise i keep the aperture at the lowest f stop and compensate my iso. I am soon getting a flash so my low light photos don't have to be above iso 400!

That "4sec" photo is impressive. lol.

 

[boogschd]

1/10" to 1/8"

but thats with a kit lens so.. mEH

 

[Garbz]

With no VR it's 1/(35mm equivalent focal length) usually divided by 2 or 3 for me because I have rather steady hands.

Camera shake is directly proportional to focal length so all those people who are providing time numbers without any focal length info are providing useless information.

 

[Jon0807]

Photo of the in-laws taken with a 28-135 IS lens, focal length 28mm, tv 1/8. I believe I was sitting down and had my elbows against my stomach. Along with the IS I had some good stability. I think I've gone down to 1 second with the same lens at around 80mm with ok results but that's with IS. I'll see if I can find a photo of that.

 

[FrankLamont]

At 28mm, 1/15 produces a 75% accuracy rate. Roughly, of course, I'm not a statistical machine, but that's about it.

 

[wgp1987]

lol this was interesting

 

[Psycho]

Oh pshaw, 4 seconds is nothing!
I'm so steady, I shoot my star trail shots hand held in bulb mode. No need for expensive remotes and tripods. I get tired after a couple of hours though.

 

[kkamin]

I go by what others have posted, that you take your focal length and divide it by 100 for full frame cameras. So for a 50mm you need at least 1/50th. But if you have a crop sensor camera (APS-C) you'll need to multiply your focal length by 1.6 to get your effective focal length and then divide by 100. So a 50mm lens would give you a 1/80 sec. I've hand held shots well under the above recommendation, but I like to avoid that situation. All things being equal, I'd rather have a little more noise than a potentially soft looking shot.

 

[Mike_E]

You can also shoot in bursts of three, you can typically get one that's fairly sharp.

1/10 @ around 50mm is about it for me.

Using the burst method I actually got a shot of a little girl and her mother from accross a large room that you could see the light fixtures in their eyes clearly.. at 400mm with a D200. Elbows braced on a table of course but still..

 

[Montana]

I haven't ever purposely tried it, but I have handheld my 600 f/4 with IS on at 1/40 with great results.

 

[icassell]

I haven't ever purposely tried it, but I have handheld my 600 f/4 with IS on at 1/40 with great results.

I can't believe you could do that. Please send me your 600 f/4 so I can try it for myself