Camera Shake and Image Stabilization (Vibration Reduction)
What is Camera Shake? When you are holding your camera in your hands and looking through the view finder to take your photo, your body is making slight movements. This is a natural thing as your body is always correcting itself and your muscles move to help maintain your balance. However, it causes slight movements in your camera. When your camera is zoomed in on a subject that is a reasonable distance away, these slight movements become more noticeable.
For example. If your hand slightly shakes and turns your camera 1 degree off its line of direction and your subject is 15 feet away, this would correspond to 3.1 inches being added in the direction your camera turned. Now say that the movement of your hand happened when you took your picture and while the shutter was open. This would blur the image on film or on your digital image.
How Do I Prevent My Pictures From Blurring? There are 3 ways to prevent this.
Make sure you have a shutter speed fast enough so that your hand movements don't affect the picture.
Use a tripod.
Have a lens with vibration reduction or image stabilization. Each of these methods have their pros and cons. 1. Have a Fast Enough Shutter Speed Ideally, you would want this situation every time. The rule of thumb is that you need a shutter speed of 1 over the focal length your lens is set at. So if you are zoomed all the way in with your 300mm lens, you would want 1/300 second shutter speed or better (so 1/320 on the standard camera). This will usually guarantee (for the average user) the shutter won't be open long enough to make your hand movements noticeable on the final image If you have steady hands you will be able to get away with a slower speed. The catch here is will you have enough light to expose your picture. If it is the middle of a bright day you are fine. If it is darker you might have to use a more sensitive film, but this will cause your picture to be grainier.
Note: When you see expensive lenses with the same zoom capability as a cheaper lens, look at the maximum aperture for this lens. Chances are it will be a lot larger than the cheaper one. F/2.8 is a common one. The lower the number, the larger the aperture can go. This means a lot more light will get let in when you take the picture, so it will be able to have higher shutter speeds.
2. Use a Tri-pod This will always work. Now you can have the shutter open as long as your want and the image won't have any blurring (this is assuming your subject isn't moving or is moving slowly). Tripods are cumbersome and annoying however. And they definitely don't work in a lot of circumstances, especially traveling.
3. Use a Lens With Image Stabilization or Vibration Reduction This is "meet in the middle" approach as you still need a decent shutter speed, but you won't need a tripod and its cheaper than a fast lens. Inside the camera there is a mechanism to adjust the glass lenses slightly to compensate for the movements of your hand. IS and VR will give you a few shutter speed stops back. So if you can't quite get enough light to have 1/320 sec shutter speed as in the example above. VR will let you go down to 1/125 sec (4 full stops in ideal situations). A lot of times, this will give you enough light to properly expose your image. VR and IS will make a lens cost extra, but they are still cheaper than buying the fast lenses I spoke of above. Fast lenses don't usually have much zoom capability either (a limitation of having such a large aperture).
The main article has an example of two images. One was taken without VR turned on and the other had VR on. This is a picture in my home taken with my Nikon D70s with the Nikon 18-200mm VR lens.
To summarize. The cheapest solution is to buy a tripod, the second is to buy a lens with IS or VR, and the most expensive is to buy "fast" lenses. I am a casual photographer and use it more for traveling so VR has been the best option for myself. If you find yourself with similar needs and want to eliminate camera shake from more of your photos, then I would definitely recommend looking at VR and IS lenses.
For more articles on photography from this author, please check out www.thoughtsfrommylife.com/category-Photography.
Related Tags: photo, nikon, canon, camera shake, image stabilization, image stabilisation, vibration reduction, blur
http://thoughtsfrommylife.com
Your Article Search Directory : Find in ArticlesRecent articles in this category:
- A Subject And His Personality
The challenge to all portrait painters is pleasing the beholder as well as having the ability to fix - A Review Of The 28 Page Free Report "shoot Digital Pics Like The Pros"
There are a lot of fine, relatively recent products coming available to buy daily. A few of these ar - Night Vision Scope- Explore The Beauty Of Nature In Night Also
Going out for a camp in forests??? Or somewhere?? Not possible to see far of objects or things in th - Commercial Photography - Photography As A Business
Photography- I guess this won't be a strange word to hear for most of you but commercial photography - Night Vision Camera Ensuring Your Safety
No one can see anything in darkness. But imagine you are capable enough to do so then what would you - Looking For A Wedding Photographer In Edinburg?
You've spent sleepless nights to ensure that your wedding day is picture perfect and goes smoothly w - Cost Effective Wedding Photography
It's the most special day of your life and you've dreamed about this day, since you were a child. Yo - Hiring A Budget Wedding Photographer?
Wedding Photography accounts for almost 10 % of the entire budget of the wedding. Does this mean tha - Image Editing:a Must For Advertising Agencies And Publications
When you see any attractive image in any online publication or in print, have you ever thought who t - How To Guide For Properly Storing Photographs
Photographs are more than just pieces of paper, they are reminders of a life once lived, and cherish
Most viewed articles in this category:
- Matting Fine Art Photographs
Picking the right mat when framing fine art photographs and other pieces of art can enhance the visu - What Are Giclee and Digital Prints?
Digital images are created from photographs taken with a digital camera or from scanned images. Fine - Ten Tips For Working With Macro Digital Photography
Macro photography is a fun way to get close up shots look stunning. If you want to get technical, th - 32 Bit Images-Stunning New Style Of Photography
The new version of Photoshop which came out last year offers a whole new feature which allows photog - Merging Two or More Images in Photoshop
Have you ever noticed how magazines, newspapers and some web designers are able to combine multiple - Buying Limited and Open Edition Prints
When you're buying fine art photographs, lithographs and other printed art, you'll notice that they - Do You Have A Passion For People Photography?
Well, I'm sure you have a passion for photography and that's why you are reading this article.If you - What to Look for When Shopping for a Digital Camera
Shopping for digital camera for the first time can be a confusing and daunting experience. With so - Hong Kong Photographer Stock Photography Royatly Free vs. Licensed
There are two types of licenses for the reproduction of photographs. One is called Traditional Licen - Stock Photograhy Lesson - Quality Requirements for Online Stock Photograph Sales
Most online stock agencies require that your images be submitted in TIFF or JPEG format at resolutio