11 Ways to Get Steady Hands During Photography: Reduce Handshaking

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When starting out to take pictures, beginners often struggle with a camera shake.

That is not the case only with beginners. In fact, some seasoned photographers at times also unknowingly shake hands while clicking pictures. The end result becomes bad and ultimately impacts the photos you took as they come out to be soft, blurry, and unwanted.

To avoid the shake, professionals often tend to use a tripod to prevent any kind of handshaking while clicking pictures.

But using the simple tricks and tips we are about to share today; you can reduce handshaking during your photo sessions and ensure that your photos never suffer from camera shake again!

Without any delays, let’s check the tips and tricks which will help you achieve the steady handheld of your camera.

11 ways to get a steady hand to reduce handshaking while clicking pictures

The following are the best ways to make your hands steady during a camera click:

Here I have included ten most essential and efficient ways to make your hand steady during your camera during a click.

Body Position

When you want to click static photos, having a proper posture while taking shots will help you to

1. Make sure that you stand with your feet slightly apart.
2. Next, put up one foot slightly in front of the other.
3. Now bring elbows into your side and bend your knees a little.
4. Support the lens from underneath with your left hand.
5. Hold the camera grip with your right hand.
6. Stand upright and avoid leaning.

For Low Angle Shots, you can practice the following:

Or, if you are taking low angle shots:

1. Put one knee on the floor
2. Put the other foot flat on the floor
3. Lean your elbow on your knee
4. Tuck the other elbow into your side
5. Hold the camera as above, supporting from below

This is an essential pose that most professional photographers follow. Doing so helps your body to be in the perfect posture.

If you keep your legs together, the position actually makes your body sway and bobble, which can result in shakes.

Camera Placement

One of the most important facets of photography is understanding the camera placement. As discussed above for a DSLR, you should try keeping your arm close to your body, keeping the right hand on the grip and the left hand on the lens. This helps in holding the camera with a much better grip which helps in reducing any kind of shaking.

When you hold the camera in your hands, your body becomes the center of gravity as opposed to the camera. Thus, try to place the camera closer to your body while capturing images, which will make you face lesser gravitational force making a much steadier position.

Lock your elbow:

Locking elbows is a tip that professionals have been using for quite some time. Tucking your elbows towards your body help.

Just pull your elbows in toward your body and let them rest against your chest. To get an even better grip, you can press your elbows towards your chest for increased stability.

Also, this position will just be for your shots only, so you won’t have to spend an eternity holding your camera like that.

Gun holder

The next vibration and shake reduction technique is called the gun holder. The gun here is nothing but your camera. This technique is a bit difficult (for me) to use because it is difficult to maintain for a long span of time.

But obviously, something hard for me doesn’t mean it’s hard for you too, so give it a try.

For this technique you need to hold your camera like a gun in your hand. Hold your camera to your eye with your right hand. To give support to your right hand, raise your left hand on your right hand till your lens can rest on it comfortably.

For added stability, place your left hand on your right bicep.

You can see that the photographer used his left forearm as a support, the left hand grabbed for the right forearm for stability.

Holding breath:

Breathing increases the chances of having added shakes to your body the results of which may extend to your camera. Thus, to reduce the shake, you can hold your breath.

With practice, you can will be able to capture 3-4 shots in one go, without taking air in again. This is what most professionals do.

Alternatively, if you are just starting out, you can also control the motion of your breathing. Try taking breaths more steadily, this will help you in achieving a shake less hand hold position.

Lean ON

We often unintentionally do this while talking to someone ~ using supportive surrounding objects to lean our body weight.

This will be the same technique we apply for reducing the body weight. By leaning on the surrounding objects such as a wall, heavy pillar, lamp post, etc. By doing so, you will be able to put yourself in a stable posture, thereby allowing your hands to be steady while clicking pictures.

Brace the camera

Just like the point we discussed above; it is often possible to brace your camera while shooting. You can place your camera on a solid surface such as a wall, top of a car, fencing, etc. This will ensure that your camera becomes much more stable allowing your hands to be flexible.

Sit down:

Most of the jerks and shakes often occur because of the movement of legs (more specifically knees). To reduce it, the best technique is to sit down on the ground, using your knees as a tripod for your camera.

Being on the ground allowing your camera to rest on your knees is of the best ways to get a tripod for free.

You can create a tripod yourself by placing your left arm on your knee when shooting in a sitting position. The other hand closes close to the chest for stability. Your elbows are once again showing great support for you when taking pictures.

Use a tripod:

The ultimate solution to get rid of shakes, once and for all without much hassles is a tripod. Thus, use a tripod if you aim to become a professional photographer. To make a human tripod, you use the point we discussed previously.

Focus on your shutter speed:

Shutter Speed is the core component that’s directly linked to the result of your shot captured. By trickling around with the shutter speed, you can manage to lower the shakiness of the footages.

For example, if you want to capture fast-moving objects like a bird or a car photograph, increasing the shutter speed will help you catch the object by your lens.

Image Stabilization support

Always pick camera that have image stabilization support built in. As the name suggests, image stabilization helps to reduce shaking of your camera. It also helps to reduce the blurredness of your images that occur from shakes.

However, Image Stabilization again is of 2 Types—Digital and optical.

Optical Image Stabilization is better than Digital Image Stabilization. Thus, pick a camera with OIS support.

Edit Images

One of the ways to reduce blurs and shakes on an image is by editing the images. There are various tools and applications such as photoshop, canva, and pic monkey; through which you can edit your photos on a pc.

Conclusion

Ultimately, reducing the blurs will be possible through a lot of practice across multiple sessions. There are various factors that can result in a blur. The prime ones are improper light, zoom, and of course shaking hands, etc.

To reduce the handshaking while clicking the shutter, you need to practice more regularly with your camera. Adding these tips to your routine is a great way to start for beginners.

This article tried to summarize various ways to get a steady hand to get sharp and crystal-clear images with your camera. Clear photos are required in almost any business, be it for capturing dental photographs or Photojournalism or Selling Items on eBay as a Seller.