Taking better photos - blurry photos

After the my rant about the difference between taking and making, why is this essay titled 'taking'? Most people are going to take photos with their 'point and shoot' digital camera or more and more these days with a cell phone camera. Other essays will talk more about making photos. So let's talk about some simple ways to improve our everyday kinds of shots.

One thing I hear a lot from people that use these kinds of cameras is "why are so many of my photos blurry?" Many think the answer to this is because they are using a cheap camera. This is only partially correct. The number one thing that causes blurry photos is camera movement. The camera is not steady in your hands. The professional cameras called SLRs or Single Lens Reflex allow the user to look into the peephole and see exactly what is coming through the lens. Inside the lens he/she can also see a lot of other info for the camera settings and can make various adjustments to match the situation. The nonprofessional camera or cell phones don't have peepholes. This means that you can only see the image from the monitor. This means that you have to hold the camera at arms length to set up the shot. Hold your arm out without holding anything and you will see that it is impossible to hold it perfectly still. Hold a camera and you will see that it is indeed moving however slightly. The pro is bringing the camera to their face with elbows bent and locked and holding the camera and/or their hands against their face. This alone provides a certain measure of stability. The casual shooter can do a lot of good by mimicking this. Go ahead and hold the camera out to set up the shot but before doing so, bend the elbows and bring it back closer to the body. This should help considerably. One thing to remember is using the zoom function will  proportionately increase the shaking. Look thorough a pair of binoculars and that is what your camera is seeing.

The other thing to take into consideration is the available light. The only thing a camera does is capture light. The less light, the harder it is for the camera to capture an image. Inside the camera is a shutter that opens and closes when you push the button to expose the sensor. I think most people understand this. The pro has control over how fast the shutter opens and closes and can make adjustments depending on the situation to allow more light into the camera. The point and shoots don't have this same control. All of the little pictograms in the menu for portraits, scenery, night scenes etc. are all basically there to change the shutter speed (and aperture) to try to make it easier for you to do what the pro is doing manually. However, even for the pro, there is a limit. In bright sunlight, the shutter doesn't need to open for very long. Typically it will only need 125th of a second or higher. 250 or 500th of a second is not unusual. Once the light starts to dim, the camera needs more light to come in and the shutter will need to stay open longer. The speed decreases to a 60th of a second or slower. Once you start to get to a 60th or below, the problem of camera shake begins to be a serious problem. The camera set to auto will want to use the flash in most cases which may or may not be desirable. Even if it doesn't flash, you are holding your arm out, the camera is moving and the shutter is slow enough to capture that movement.

The only solution is to brace the camera. The pro in most cases will use a tripod or increasingly a monopod to hold the camera still. If one isn't available, you have to do your best to reduce camera movement. One way is to simply set the camera on something. Every camera has a timer setting that will allow you to push the button and delay the exposure for 5 or 10 seconds. Many may already use this to take pictures of themselves. Who hasn't clicked a camera and then run in front of it before it goes off? Well, you can use this to take pictures in the dark and eliminate the blurring shake.

If it isn't too dark, you may still need to steady your hands as much as possible. There are many ways of doing this from simply locking your elbows as mentioned above. The darker it gets though the more you will have to do. Spread your feet apart, bend the knees a little or kneel all the way down. Rest your arms on something or lean against something. Many cameras also have a setting to take multiple shots while holding down the button called Continuous Shooting mode. Using this it is possible to get one good one out of a handful.

The photo below was taken in Oct 2011 at the World Trade Center Memorial. Large bags or packs of any kind including any and all camera bags were not allowed into the area. Unfortunately my extra battery was in my bag and like an idiot I forgot to take it out. It happens to best of them. After taking just a few shots, my battery died. My wife had the point and shoot with her and I put the camera on continuous shooting mode and rested my arms on the edge of the monument. I got quite few that were blurry, but I got this one and one good one is enough.