Hi, this is Tom Greenwood from Sydneyporttraits.com. Got you. And in this clip. We get to look at why some of your shots might be a bit fuzzy bleary not quite sharp.

What we’re not talking about is the focus. That’s something I’ll deal with. In another video here we’re talking about two things: camera shake and slow shutter speed . At least shutter speed, that’s too slow to freeze your subject. So, the concepts of camera shake is quite obvious. But there are a number of different reasons for it and therefore ways to avoid it. Now the first is to make sure that you are standing and holding the camera correctly.

Okay. So we’re standing. And we’re holding the camera correctly. But I look at the horrible jabbing, stabbing and shatter finger. It’s really shaking the camera.

And this is a result of a blurred image. So easily remedied when you’re taking a photo. You want to gently squeeze the shutter button, just to make sure the camera is ready still. Now for less obvious reasons for camera shake. Here we are using a longish lens i.e. 135 millimeters. Now let’s look at the shutter speed that we’re using. We’re shooting at an eighth of a second. Now there’s a golden rule related to lenses and shutter speed. We always use a shutter speed faster than the length of the lens.

So if you’re using say a 200 millimeter lens, don’t shoot at slower than a 200th of a second.

Now, this rule only applies for hand-held shooting not for use with a tripod. So, at 80 millimeters, we’re not getting real dramatic blur. But if we zoom in we can see the pictures really not sharp. So let’s adjust the shutter speed to a 200th of a second. And immediately we can see the difference. We’ve got a nice crisp image. So this rule applies to all lenses. On its and roll the eye, I sometimes forget which is why I’ve pasted this reminder on my lens. So moving on from camera shake but still looking at shutter speed. Here we’re taking some portraits. The light is quite dim. So we shoot at 1/60th second. Now, this is a fairly slow shutter speed and if our subject was sitting stock still, like a statue that would be fine. But, of course, she’s not! When shooting portraits is often nice to chat with the subject. So you get a range of expressions but that means the subject’s is moving and a 1/60th second is too slow to freeze those movements. Let’s try twice the shutter speed, 1/125th second. And, again, initially, it looks pretty good. But if we zoom in we can see it. Even this shutter speed, it’s too slow to freeze her movements. Now 1/125th second is a shutter speed. I use quite a lot for portraits but that’s really for when the portrait subject isn’t moving. And in this case, she is. So let’s speed it up to 200th a second. So if we look at her top, we can see it’s not actually in focus but more importantly if we look at her eyes at last they’re nice and sharp they’re nice and crisp. So we can feel confident that this kind of shot. The subject is moving chatting to hundredths of a second is probably about right. OK. So I hope you found that helpful.