Holding the camera steady

Pick up a camera and it moves. Your pulse moves it, your breathing moves it, and the act of pressing the button moves it. If the shutter is open long enough for that movement to matter, the whole frame smears.

This is camera shake, and it is probably the single most common reason a beginner’s photographs are not sharp.

Telling it apart from the alternatives

Three different faults look like “blurry” and have three different cures, so it is worth learning to tell them apart.

What you see	What it is	What fixes it
Everything soft, including still things	Camera shake	Faster shutter, or support
Subject smeared, background sharp	motion blur	Faster shutter
Something else sharp instead	Missed focus	Focus on the right thing

The tell for camera shake is that things which were definitely not moving — a wall, a table — are soft as well.

How fast is fast enough

The rule of thumb is the reciprocal rule: use a shutter speed at least as fast as one over the focal length.

• 24mm lens → 1/25s or faster
• 50mm lens → 1/50s or faster
• 200mm lens → 1/200s or faster

A longer lens magnifies your movement exactly as much as it magnifies the subject, which is why it demands more.

Technique that costs nothing

• Bring your elbows in against your body rather than winging them out.
• Support the lens from underneath with your left hand, rather than gripping it from the side.
• Breathe out and take the shot at the bottom of the breath.
• Squeeze the button rather than stabbing it.
• Lean on something. A doorframe, a wall, a car roof — anything that is not you.

None of these require buying anything, and together they are worth roughly a stop.

Try it

Key takeaways

• Camera shake blurs the whole frame; subject motion blurs only the subject.
• The reciprocal rule gives a starting point: one over the focal length.
• A longer lens magnifies your own movement and needs a faster shutter.
• Technique is free and worth about a stop.