Do car vibrations degrade hand-held shots

[Sfleming]

[font color=\'#000000\']I would  think  these  are definitely the  types of vibration that could denigrate an image.  I always  shut the motor off.

I have  s similar wondering  about shooting  from a boat.  I was  out  in my canoe  the  other  day  which I normally  only  use  as a transportation device to get to shooting subjects but  I found two  giant long  dead cypress trees sitting  in very calm water which would make very interesting subjects.  They cannot be shot like I want from land.  Being one  who almost  always shoots  with slow tranny film I'm wondering if I can set up  my tripod  (collapsed  legs) and shoot  them from the canoe.  This would  negate my shaky  hands  but  no  matter how  calm  the water  there is  still some  small motion in  a boat.  I'm wondering what speed I can get away with?[/font]

[Bobtrips]

[font color=\'#000000\']Take the 'target shooting' advice one step further.  Squeeze the trigger, er, shutter button.  Don't "push" it.  Don't push against the camera but squeeze the camera in your hand.

I've watched people bend into their camera as they "pushed" the shutter.  My aunt was famous for chopping off the tops of people's heads when she was shooting.  She had a sort of bowing motion that she used at the critical moment.[/font]

[Bobtrips]

[font color=\'#000000\']Consider an image stabilized lens.  

Or a image stabilized camera such as the Panasonic FZ10 or FZ20 for casual wildlife photos.  35-420 mm eq. lens, 2.8 through the whole range.[/font]

[John Camp]

[font color=\'#000000\']Or do I have a different problem? For reasons not worth explaining, I've been taking a series of mini-landscapes (averaging perhaps six feet wide) and some of them I've shot from a parked, but running, car on a roadside. A number of the shots show overall blurring, like the kind you get with camera motion. I was handholding a Kodak SLR/n, shooting in bright daylight, with a Nikon VR lens. Others are perfectly sharp. I began wondering if (1) car vibration alone is enough to blur photos -- the car is a V8 that runs very smoothly. I may have rested my hand on the window edge, which would transmit vibration more directly than if I'd not leaned against the car; also (2) is it possible for the vibration to interact with the VR and put a double whammy on me, with the VR trying to counteract a vibration that is simply too fast? I don't believe that any of the shots I took from outside the car show the blurring, but I'm not sure I remember where I was for each shot. Any opinions?

JC[/font]

[font color=\'#000000\']The tripod will increase vigration in this instance, not reduce it. It will transmit every little ripple up to the camera.

Better to hand hold, where your body serves to absorb some of the vibration.

Hold your forearms in to your chest with the camera up against your face. Hold the camera firmly, but no too hard, because if your arms or hands are too tight the muscles will start to tremor.

Breath in and then breath out slowly. At the end of the breath release the shutter. Do so in a smooth motion rather than a poke at the release. Take the shot several times in the hope that one of them will be sharp.

BTW, this technique is the one that target shooters use. It's a good idea to practice this sitting at home and to test what shutter speed you can achieve.

Michael[/font]

[Sfleming]

[font color=\'#000000\']Thanks Michael and Bob,

I used  to have a lot more  confidence in my hand holding ability  but alas, I am no spring chicken any more.  I think I have developed a tad of a tremor from somewhere as well.  I've noticed it when really paying  attention while looking  through the viewfinder.

The day I was out in the canoe I also came across two Cottonmouth  Water Mocasins mating.  They were dancing and twining with utter abandon.  I hovered no more than fifteen feet from them and they paid  me  absolutely no mind.  Since I don't usually shoot from the  boat I had no film in the camera.  I dug it out of the bag and loaded up a role of 120 but of course all I had was 100 asa.  I was shooting them at f/4 and 1/15th.  Probably just be a blur.  I was pretty excited.  Not sure  I even  got the exposure  right as the camera is almost always on manual and I had  such 'buck fever' I didn't even notice I  was over-exposing  by a stop or so untill about the third frame.  Maybe I got lucky.  We shall see.

Regardless it will be a severe crop situation  as  my longest  lens was  80mm.  I now  have  the 120 Macro but really need  the 210  .... and  some faster film if I'm going to do this  nature stuff.  I  hardly ever do but the  situation with these  creatures really gave  me the  bug.

If only I had had the 10D with me.[/font]

[Alberio]

[font color=\'#000000\']

Consider an image stabilized lens.  

Or a image stabilized camera such as the Panasonic FZ10 or FZ20 for casual wildlife photos.  35-420 mm eq. lens, 2.8 through the whole range.

Er, the guy did say he was using a Nikon VR lens, not sure what you're smoking here ....

Again, definitely no leaning any body parts on a vibrating object, no matter how rotund and absorbent you might think you are. I usually try to keep my rear end as my upper body's closest connection to a running vehicle. So, no leaning the hood against a train window or resting an elbow on a car window frame. Moreover, the floating "correctional" lens inside an image stabilized lens is on an extremely light and easy-to-move frame and is probably very susceptible to high-frequency vibration, but in general all lenses are affected.

Bob My dad is a worse offender: you can see the camera rotate toward the shutter button when he presses it! Maybe even worse is that his understanding of autofocus on point-and-shoot cameras is to press the shutter halfway and then reframe. This includes moving backwards and forwards ....[/font]