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#11
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Steady hold for a P&S
On 2013-04-19 19:56:31 -0700, nospam said:
In article , Alan Browne wrote: Does anyone particularly recommend a monopod that can double as a walking stick and fold for airline travel? They all fold (telescope) to a reasonable lengtgh, but I'm not sure they'll allow a monopod in the cabin. monopods and tripods are not prohibited for carry on. however, the tsa can always change their mind on a whim, 'out of an abundance of caution.' ....and ignorance in the field. -- Regards, Savageduck |
#12
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Steady hold for a P&S
On Fri, 19 Apr 2013 15:19:10 -0400, Alan Meyer
wrote: I've got one of those very small P&S "travel zoom" cameras (Panasonic ZS-9) with up to 16:1 optical zoom. The big challenge in getting sharp photos with high zoom is holding the camera steady. It doesn't help that the camera is small and light with little weight to damp vibrations, or that it has a strap attachment point on only one side, or that its only viewing mechanism is the LCD display on the back that must be held a foot or more from your eyes to see the picture. And of course being an old guy with shaky hands is probably worst of all. I'm thinking about buying a walking stick monopod (any suggestions?) but I also believe that good hand holding technique makes a big difference in cutting down the vibrations. The best thing I've come up with so far is to hold up my left hand limply in front of my face with the palm facing me. Instead of grasping the camera with my left hand, I rest it on the top. By not actually holding the camera with my fingers and thumb the small muscles in fingers and thumb are relaxed and not involved in supporting the camera. Then I use as little pressure as I can with the right hand to press the shutter release. The camera is secured from falling by the neck strap, so there won't be any serious accidents this way and I've gotten much better results than I did when I tried to hold it tight. Does anyone have any other suggestions? Does anyone particularly recommend a monopod that can double as a walking stick and fold for airline travel? Thanks. Alan In physics class I learned that heavy objects have large inertia. Mount the camera on a lead slab. |
#13
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Steady hold for a P&S
On Fri, 19 Apr 2013 15:19:10 -0400, Alan Meyer
wrote: I've got one of those very small P&S "travel zoom" cameras (Panasonic ZS-9) with up to 16:1 optical zoom. The big challenge in getting sharp photos with high zoom is holding the camera steady. It doesn't help that the camera is small and light with little weight to damp vibrations, or that it has a strap attachment point on only one side, or that its only viewing mechanism is the LCD display on the back that must be held a foot or more from your eyes to see the picture. And of course being an old guy with shaky hands is probably worst of all. I'm thinking about buying a walking stick monopod (any suggestions?) but I also believe that good hand holding technique makes a big difference in cutting down the vibrations. The best thing I've come up with so far is to hold up my left hand limply in front of my face with the palm facing me. Instead of grasping the camera with my left hand, I rest it on the top. By not actually holding the camera with my fingers and thumb the small muscles in fingers and thumb are relaxed and not involved in supporting the camera. Then I use as little pressure as I can with the right hand to press the shutter release. The camera is secured from falling by the neck strap, so there won't be any serious accidents this way and I've gotten much better results than I did when I tried to hold it tight. Does anyone have any other suggestions? Does anyone particularly recommend a monopod that can double as a walking stick and fold for airline travel? Manfrotto make a variety of monopods of various lengths, number of stages, diameters etc. You may find one of them may suit you. I've used one of the heavier ones for years with complete satisfaction. -- Regards, Eric Stevens |
#14
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Steady hold for a P&S
On 2013.04.19 21:10 , Alan Meyer wrote:
On 04/19/2013 04:52 PM, Alan Browne wrote: ... It's a myth that weight dampens vibrations for hand holding. Weight means your muscles have to work more. And the more you have to hold the weight away from your body, the more work you have to do to keep it steady. Lighter is better. ... I see your point about making the muscles work more. If the camera is too heavy the muscles are going to twitch. Technically, of course, I should have used the term "mass" rather than weight. Mass really does damp vibrations. The amount of energy required to overcome the inertia of an object with very little mass is very little, and proportionally more for an object with a lot of mass. Similarly, the same amount of energy put into a massive object and a lighter object results in more rapid movement in the light object. It's a directly inverse relationship based on E = (mv^2)/2. High School physics aside, as the mass grows you have to do work to keep it stable. More mass, more work. This is a factor in the solidity of heavy tripods over light ones - though it's not the only one. What is most needed of a tripod is stiffness. A tripod is (normally) resting on the ground and the only advantage of weight is tipping resistance. Ligther tripods (carbon fibre) still dampen vibrations quite well - possibly better than metal or wood. But, as you point out, there is a limit to what can be gained by increasing the weight. ... In the meantime, try to: -increase the ISO setting -open op the aperture to force a higher shutter speed - esp. when the zoom is way out there. ... Yes. Trading off higher noise and lower depth for less camera shake can often produce a superior image. Thanks. Alan -- "There were, unfortunately, no great principles on which parties were divided – politics became a mere struggle for office." -Sir John A. Macdonald |
#15
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Steady hold for a P&S
On Fri, 19 Apr 2013 16:52:04 -0400, Alan Browne
wrote: On 2013.04.19 15:19 , Alan Meyer wrote: I've got one of those very small P&S "travel zoom" cameras (Panasonic ZS-9) with up to 16:1 optical zoom. The big challenge in getting sharp photos with high zoom is holding the camera steady. It doesn't help that the camera is small and light with little weight to damp vibrations, It's a myth that weight dampens vibrations for hand holding. Weight means your muscles have to work more. And the more you have to hold the weight away from your body, the more work you have to do to keep it steady. Lighter is better. Hardly a myth. Every body has inertia proportional to its mass (Newton's first law). Inertia resists any change in motion. A one-pound camera has more mass and, hence, more inertia than a one-ouuce camera. The more mass, the more resistance to any change in motion, and therefore, the more stable. High school physics. That's one factor. Another factor is muscle strength (and endurance). If I am holding an object (against gravity), the limits of my strength come into play. If the weight of the camera is significant relative to my strength, there could be some shaking due to muscle fatigue. I would expect that to be minimal (or at least insignificantly different than my normal stability with empty hands). That is, the difference in this factor for most non-professional cameras (from ultra compact to DSLRs) is negligible. A large professional camera with a huge lens would be a different matter. Putting these two factors together, I would expect the mass-stability curve to start at some level (0) for empty hands and increase slightly up to some maximum value (1-2 pounds) and then decrease rather more quickly to zero for weights that I cannot lift at all. The full analysis is certainly somewshat more complicated and involves more factors. |
#16
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Steady hold for a P&S
On 2013.04.20 11:50 , Jennifer Murphy wrote:
On Fri, 19 Apr 2013 16:52:04 -0400, Alan Browne wrote: On 2013.04.19 15:19 , Alan Meyer wrote: I've got one of those very small P&S "travel zoom" cameras (Panasonic ZS-9) with up to 16:1 optical zoom. The big challenge in getting sharp photos with high zoom is holding the camera steady. It doesn't help that the camera is small and light with little weight to damp vibrations, It's a myth that weight dampens vibrations for hand holding. Weight means your muscles have to work more. And the more you have to hold the weight away from your body, the more work you have to do to keep it steady. Lighter is better. Hardly a myth. Every body has inertia proportional to its mass (Newton's first law). Inertia resists any change in motion. A one-pound camera has more mass and, hence, more inertia than a one-ouuce camera. That's fine for pool balls and astronauts. (And it's resistance to change in velocity, BTW). But an object held out is continuously subject to the force of gravity (here on the planet) and so you have to apply an equal and opposite force to stop it from moving. That force is proportional to the mass (F=ma). More mass = more force. So of course, once something is moving you need to apply a force to stop it and continue that force to move back to the first position. As the force is larger with mass, more force is required for a heavier object. Holding anything away from your body, unbraced, requires continuous work to prevent the object from falling. Every little correction is work. (Why the preferred hand holding technique for an SLR works well with a viewfinder but not so well with the LCD display). More force=more work = more energy = more tired = less control = blurry images. -- "There were, unfortunately, no great principles on which parties were divided – politics became a mere struggle for office." -Sir John A. Macdonald |
#17
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Steady hold for a P&S
Savageduck wrote:
On 2013-04-19 12:19:10 -0700, Alan Meyer said: I've got one of those very small P&S "travel zoom" cameras (Panasonic ZS-9) with up to 16:1 optical zoom. The big challenge in getting sharp photos with high zoom is holding the camera steady. It doesn't help that the camera is small and light with little weight to damp vibrations, or that it has a strap attachment point on only one side, or that its only viewing mechanism is the LCD display on the back that must be held a foot or more from your eyes to see the picture. And of course being an old guy with shaky hands is probably worst of all. I'm thinking about buying a walking stick monopod (any suggestions?) but I also believe that good hand holding technique makes a big difference in cutting down the vibrations. The best thing I've come up with so far is to hold up my left hand limply in front of my face with the palm facing me. Instead of grasping the camera with my left hand, I rest it on the top. By not actually holding the camera with my fingers and thumb the small muscles in fingers and thumb are relaxed and not involved in supporting the camera. Then I use as little pressure as I can with the right hand to press the shutter release. The camera is secured from falling by the neck strap, so there won't be any serious accidents this way and I've gotten much better results than I did when I tried to hold it tight. Does anyone have any other suggestions? Does anyone particularly recommend a monopod that can double as a walking stick and fold for airline travel? Thanks. Alan A non-tripod solution which can help steady a camera, is to attach a length of cord or strap to an appropriately sized bolt or tripod mount to screw into the camera's tripod mount. I would suggest something such as the BlackRapid "fastnr" fitting, and add to that their "connectr". I posted this a while back: http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f2...string_pod.jpg BugBear |
#18
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Steady hold for a P&S
On 04/19/2013 06:00 PM, Mort wrote:
If you are shooting a still object, then try setting the selftimer for ca. 10 seconds. Then you can steady the camera with 2 hands without any shake due to your releasing the shutter manually. That's not a bad idea, though I might prefer the shortest possible selftimer, which I believe is two seconds on my camera. One second would probably be ideal, reducing the vibration while still giving me some hope that the scene that I capture is the same as the scene I saw when I pressed the shutter release. Thanks. Alan |
#19
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Steady hold for a P&S
On 04/19/2013 10:20 PM, Savageduck wrote:
.... A non-tripod solution which can help steady a camera, is to attach a length of cord or strap to an appropriately sized bolt or tripod mount to screw into the camera's tripod mount. I would suggest something such as the BlackRapid "fastnr" fitting, and add to that their "connectr". http://www.blackrapid.com/products/fastenr-stealth http://www.blackrapid.com/products/connectr Then take a length of strap or cord of sufficient length (either a long loop or a single length) that you have a loop at the bottom which you can put the toe of one of your feet into. Now if you bring the camera up to your face, or if you keep your elbows into your side bringing the strap/cord under tension you will have a make-shift brace to help steady your shot. Not always fool proof, but some folks have found this type of thing helpful. Then Amazon has a fair selection of mono-pods, and walking sticks with camera mounts. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=pd_lpo_k...M4N45PRYY73CFN or http://tinyurl.com/d7zdlkj Here are a few things to check: http://www.sederquist.com/clabrace.html http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/20...isnt-possible/ A lot of good ideas there. Thanks. I'll probably buy a monopod just because I like having a walking stick and it doesn't cost much more or detract from its usefulness as a walking stick to have a camera mount on it. However I particularly like some of the suggestions that don't involve any extra gear. It's always an advantage if you can take a camera out of your pocket with no extra gear and no setup, and get a steady shot. Thanks again. Alan |
#20
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Steady hold for a P&S
On 4/22/2013 5:52 AM, bugbear wrote:
Savageduck wrote: On 2013-04-19 12:19:10 -0700, Alan Meyer said: I've got one of those very small P&S "travel zoom" cameras (Panasonic ZS-9) with up to 16:1 optical zoom. The big challenge in getting sharp photos with high zoom is holding the camera steady. It doesn't help that the camera is small and light with little weight to damp vibrations, or that it has a strap attachment point on only one side, or that its only viewing mechanism is the LCD display on the back that must be held a foot or more from your eyes to see the picture. And of course being an old guy with shaky hands is probably worst of all. I'm thinking about buying a walking stick monopod (any suggestions?) but I also believe that good hand holding technique makes a big difference in cutting down the vibrations. The best thing I've come up with so far is to hold up my left hand limply in front of my face with the palm facing me. Instead of grasping the camera with my left hand, I rest it on the top. By not actually holding the camera with my fingers and thumb the small muscles in fingers and thumb are relaxed and not involved in supporting the camera. Then I use as little pressure as I can with the right hand to press the shutter release. The camera is secured from falling by the neck strap, so there won't be any serious accidents this way and I've gotten much better results than I did when I tried to hold it tight. Does anyone have any other suggestions? Does anyone particularly recommend a monopod that can double as a walking stick and fold for airline travel? Thanks. Alan A non-tripod solution which can help steady a camera, is to attach a length of cord or strap to an appropriately sized bolt or tripod mount to screw into the camera's tripod mount. I would suggest something such as the BlackRapid "fastnr" fitting, and add to that their "connectr". I posted this a while back: http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f2...string_pod.jpg BugBear Yup! works very well. -- PeterN |
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