How to Hold Your Camera Correctly to Avoid Camera Shake

You get out your camera to take some photos of a beautiful fruit tree that just bloomed in your yard. You get your settings down, set your focus, and take the photo! And it comes out kinda fuzzy? Your settings are fine, the lens is clean, so what’s the problem? While there are a couple different possibilities, it could be that you weren’t holding your camera in the best way to reduce camera shake. Camera shake is just what it sounds like. And it happens when the camera is moved, even just a little, while taking a photograph. Besides buying lenses with image stabilization built in, which does help, there are a few additional things you can do to reduce camera shake and get sharper and clearer photos.

Contact points are the places where your arms, which are holding your camera, come in contact with your body. The more contact points you have, the more steady your camera will be. And keeping your body steady is one of the most important things you can do to get those crisp photos you’re looking for. My roommate, Ween, is interested in learning photography, so we headed outside so I could teach her some tips to help her hold a camera correctly, increase her contact points, and reduce camera shake.

Holding the Camera

You'll know you're holding your camera correctly when the fingers from both hands are close to each other.

So first things first, we need to make sure you are holding your camera the right way. If you’re like me, when you first started out you had at least one of these things wrong. And if that is the case, switching it up now is going to feel really weird. But it’s worth it to get sharper images!

Right Hand If you’ve held a camera before this one is pretty straightforward. And Ween has, so this was easy for her. Your right hand will hold the right side of the camera where the grip is. Make sure you have a firm but comfortable grip and that your index finger can reach the shutter release button. Ween didn’t know what the shutter release was, so I quickly let her know that it’s the button you press to release the shutter and actually take the photo. Left Hand Now this hand can get a little tricky. At first Ween put her left hand on the side, but that isn’t supporting the camera or the lens. So I told her that the correct way to place your left hand is underneath the lens. This adds extra support and helps to prevent camera shake. It also makes it so that both your elbows are close to your body. Which takes us right to the next point.

Elbows

As you can see in this photo her arms are way too far away from her body! This can cause lots of camera shake.

You want your elbows to be as close to your body as possible. Ween naturally did really good at this! I explained to her that it goes back to contact points. Having her elbows close to her body makes her more stable as she takes a photograph.

This is the correct placement for your arms! You want them close to your body to avoid that dreaded camera shake.

Then I had her take a portrait orientation photo. She quickly realized that this does not allow both elbows to be close to your body. Which is true! But whenever possible you want your elbows tucked in and pressed against you. This adds stabilization and again, helps prevent camera shake.

After following these steps Ween quickly became a pro at eliminating camera shake from her photos.

Extra Support

After Ween got hand and elbow placement down we moved on to talking about some of the additional things she could do to add extra support. If you have the ability to, lean up against something. Leaning against a building, a tree, a railing or anything sturdy stabilizes your body and means you won’t be shaking when you try to take the picture.

In this photo you can see that Ween is leaning backward slightly to try and get a good picture of the blossoms. But this makes her more likely to get some camera shake.

Something else you can do is make sure that you are always standing straight up and down. We often have a tendency to lean forward or backward to get a better angle, but as Ween found out that is making you hold your body in an uncomfortable or unusual position and it causes you to shake, even if only a little. So take a step whichever way you need to and make sure that your body is straight.

Here, Ween took a step back and stood up straight so that she could stay steady while taking a photo.

Ween summed it up by saying “so moving is bad.” Which is exactly it. If you are moving your camera will be moving, and if your camera is moving your photos will be blurry.

Next, I had Ween sit on the ground with her camera.

If you are sitting down to take the photo, rest your elbows on your knees, well actually your thighs. You don’t want your elbow to be right on your knee because that joint isn’t a sturdy enough contact point, but rest your elbows just a smidge above the knee and you’ll be golden. Ween had a little trouble remembering this, but with a little practice she got it.

Then, I had Ween crouch down with her camera.

When crouching, you want to make sure your feet are flat on the ground. Ween likes to laugh at me because I can't do this.

If you are crouching you want your feet to be flat on the ground, which is super easy for Ween and not so easy for me. So if you can’t pull this one off, it's probably best to sit or stand, not crouch. But okay, you’ve got your feet planted flat on the ground. And now just like sitting, you’ll put your elbows just a little above the knee to create that steady contact point.

Breathing

Ween tried out the breathing techniques and decided they would get easier with practice.

When I told Ween I was going to teach her how to breathe she gave me a funny look. Who knew there was a right way to breathe, right? Well in photography there is! There are 2 techniques that you can try out that could help prevent camera shake. And Ween was ready to try them out.

Technique #1

Before you take your photo take a deep breath in. Then hold it while you take the shot. Once you’ve taken the photo release your breath. Make sure you compose your shot and get the focus where you want it before you breathe in, otherwise you’ll be trying to hold your breath for a long time and that could cause more shake than normal! At first, Ween forgot to compose and focus before she started holding her breath, and she was really confused about how this would help her. But after figuring that out she was excited to try it out!

Technique #2

This is the exact opposite of #1, so Ween was pretty sure she could pull it off. In this technique you breathe out, and then take your photo. After you have taken your shot, breathe in again. But again, make sure you compose the shot and get your focus otherwise it’ll take too long. Ween was confused at first about why the way she breathes could affect her photo. But I explained that using either one of these techniques helps eliminate your body rising and falling from breathing, which in turn will help prevent camera shake. Now Ween knows how to correctly hold a camera so that she can avoid camera shake. So we can move on to more challenging things now, right?

Camera shake is annoying and can really ruin a great photograph! But learning how to properly hold your camera will really go a long way in helping you to eliminate it and get those sharp and in focus photos that you are wanting!

Have you tried any of these tips out before? What works for you?