Eliminating Camera Movement and Fuzziness

Why do my pictures look so fuzzy?

All too often when people show me their prized photos they often preface it with, “It looked so awesome when I took it, but for some reason it’s a little fuzzy. What’s wrong with my camera?

There are several reasons for this and all too often it is an easy fix. The reasons do vary between digital and film cameras but often they do overlap. Let’s look at the similar ones and then we will explore the differences independently.

First and foremost, people are hand-holding cameras when the light is too low requiring a slow shutter speed and with the longer shutter speed the chances of camera movement is greatly increased.

Camera shake can and usually does cause fuzzy photographs.

Camera shake is the small amount of movement a camera makes when you press the shutter. That's right, the seemingly insignificant act of pressing the shutter release while hand holding a camera can cause image blur. Sure it may seem insignificant, but if your goal is to produce high-quality photography, a stable camera is a necessity.

Oddly enough camera shake is more prevalent with a small camera than a larger heavier one. I often see people taking the picture reaching out with one hand holding the camera and taking the picture at the same time. That’s a no no.

Naturally, the best way to avoid camera shake is to have a tripod. Obviously, we don’t always have a tripod with us so we need to develop techniques to overcome this handicap.

Under normal circumstances, you should not handhold your camera at shutter speeds longer than about 1/30 second, as long as you have a well supported base grip. I will delve more into how to properly hold your camera later in the article.

When a long lens is used, this becomes even more critical, because the images produced by long lenses are affected more by camera movement. Also, it is more difficult to control the weight and greater size of a long lens when it is hand-held. As a general rule, the slowest recommended shutter speed is the reciprocal of the focal length of the lens; for example, when you are using a 500mm lens, the slowest shutter speed you should use is 1/500 second.

Here are some fast, easy, steps to improve your photo quality:

When handholding your camera, be sure to have a good, solid, but not tense grip on the camera.

Always place one hand under the camera.

Use your whole body as a firm support. Your elbows should be close to your body and your feet spread apart to provide good balance. In this position your body is acting as a tripod.

There are ways to steady yourself like leaning against something solid like a wall, tree, or post. If there is nothing is available to support your camera other than yourself, try sitting down, squatting, or kneeling, and firmly rest your elbows on one or both knees.

When you are taking low-angle photographs, lying on the ground with the camera in front of you is another simple way to keep the camera reasonably steady. Even better results are obtained when you place the camera on a solid surface, such as a railing or a rock.

If you are placing your camera on another object then try and use the self timer so that the camera will “trip” itself. That way there is little chance for camera movement.

Most important of all, when you engage the shutter release, take a deep breath, hold your breath and press the shutter release gently rather than jabbing it.

Then of course you can buy lenses or cameras with image stabilization. As with most digital technology, different manufacturers are taking on the problem slightly differently. Although IS does come in many different forms, the common denominator is the gyroscopic sensor and its ability to stabilize the optical path instead of the entire camera.

One final element that is common to both types of cameras and is found on the higher quality cameras is an eye-piece diopter. This diopter adjusts the focusing on the viewer and if this is not set to your eye you may be inadvertently taking out of focus pictures.

Let’s look at some of the challenges inherent with film versus digital cameras.

With film cameras, or SLR’s if you will, they all use a mirror. When you trip the shutter the mirror is brought up quickly and with slow shutter speeds just the motion of the mirror can cause camera shake. With some SLR’s you can lock the mirror up before taking the picture to avoid this; however, the disadvantage of locking the mirror is that you are unable to see through the viewfinder. But seeing that you have already composed the image this shouldn’t be a problem anyway.

On the other hand, digital cameras being basically computers require process time before the photograph is taken. This takes time, with some cameras longer than others. This being the case, often the photographer misses “the moment”, or hurries to take the pictures and causes camera shake. To overcome this, all you need to do is when you are preparing to take the photograph, press the shutter half way down gently and hold it there so that the camera can process the light, focusing, and colour values and when the “decisive moment” arrives, press it the rest of the way to capture the image.

Another with digital cameras is that when using the automatic option, the camera will often choose a different ISO setting dependant on the available light. When you or the camera chooses a higher setting like 400 ISO and up, often the noise in the digital image causes the image to look out of focus. To overcome this always preset your ISO rating to the value or quality level that you want to use. Knowing that the quality may be a little poor you can always use image alteration software like Photoshop to “sharpen” the image. As long as you know that sharpening the image essentially is adding contrast.

Finally, when using the zoom feature on your digital camera, make sure that you are using the optical zoom. There are two types of zoom for a digital lens; one is optical and the other is digital. Optical zoom uses lens elements and maintains high quality throughout, whereas digital zoom is a computerized pixel enhancement tool and increase contrast at the same time seeing decreased picture quality. Most often the loss of quality is seen in the lack of focus or fuzziness. Again it can be digitally corrected to a certain degree, but unfortunately at the loss of something else.

So to take better pictures and eliminating camera movement and fuzziness; take you time, breath evenly, hold your camera steady, and have fun