One of the questions I get asked most when on my workshops or visiting clubs, is about reducing camera shake and getting sharper images especially when shooting long exposures. As expected, the longer the exposure then the more chance that even the slightest of movement will affect the quality of your image.

Some or all of these suggestions may seem obvious to some but not everyone knows about these, especially those just starting off in photography.

Tripod

There is no substitute for a good quality sturdy tripod. Buy the best one you can afford, that is best suited to the type of images you shoot e.g. do you need it to be compact when closed or hold the weight of a medium format camera? Do you need one with a centre column or one that can sit very close to the ground? There is plenty of advice online on what type of tripod is best for each person but the important thing for landscape photographers it that it is solid. If you stick your camera on it or with the slightest breeze shakes uncontrollably, then it is not going to help.

Mirror Lockup

Most DSLRs have a mirror lockup feature, which is usually activated from one of the menus. Once enabled, you can press your shutter release to lock the mirror on the first press and then take the image on the second press. This will help keep the movement of the camera down and reduce the chance of camera shake.

Remote

A lot of people don't use a remote to trigger their shutter and always press the shutter button by hand on the top of the camera. As expected, pressing the camera down can cause camera shake and a remote can very easily remove that altogether. Not only that, but when your camera is low down or high up then you don't have to break your back trying to press the shutter button. One thing to bear in mind is that not all wireless remote allow bulb exposures and will only allow a maximum time of 30 seconds. You will need one that will allow you to keep the shutter open for as long as required especially if you are shooting long exposures.

Camera Strap

If you are down by the beach/coast shooting seascapes or even high up a mountain and it gets a bit windy, ever noticed your camera strap flapping about madly and whipping you in the face on occasion? No, just me? I found the camera strap to be nuisance and it just got in the way more times than not so I just removed it. Whether it makes a huge difference or not is debatable but I believe with less 'resistance' against the camera, it can only reduce the chance of camera shake.

The biggest concern you may have is the risk of dropping your camera without a strap on it but I have a hand strap on it which does the job for me and I have not had any problems.

I will share (in a future post) some tips on using software such as Photoshop to sharpen your images but there is no fix for out of focus photographs, so the above tips are still important.Hope these tips come in handy to some of you...