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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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