Advice on zoom-lens camera-shake

bravo

Hi Guys,
Your help appreciated. I'm a beginner, using a Canon 400d and Sigma 70-300 APO.
I know a tripod is the answer and works well when I use it, but sometimes its not convenient and I end up with blurred pics. Tend to take wildlife, mostly on automatic but want to try with some of the advanced settings.
Any advice on the camera settings I should try out to help remove the shakes.

DonkeyStyle \o/

Argh I know... camera shake kills so many of my photos.
But I suppose that'll teach me to use ISO100 and aperture priority mode all the time!
What I'm doing lately is looking through the view-finder with my finger pressed half way down, seeing what shutter speed it's going to give me in that light, then bump the ISO if I need to.
I'd say experiment, just stand there for a while taking the same pic over and over again to see what shutter speed you need to stay faster than... then take note of it and make sure you don't hand-hold at anything slower than that.
Or I heard an interesting tip before about taking a whole burst of shots and counting on at least one of them being reasonably shake-free.

elven

If your wildlife is moving about, you probably want to stick it on Tv (shutter priority mode) and make sure your shutter speeds are staying in the thousandths of a second.

If your subject isn't moving, and you just want to avoid the shake from your hands blurring the picture then a general rule of thumb is to shoot faster than 1/focal length - ie, if you have a 300mm lens on a crop sensor body giving you 1/480 or 1/500th of a second at slowest. It depends how steady your hands are though - i can't shoot handheld with my 100mm at less than 1/250th - which I learned the hard way

Paulw

Buy a monopod. That will greatly help stability.

Other than that, as elven says, use a high shutter speed. Bump up your ISO to at least 400 or even try ISO 800. Use Shutter Priority (Tv) and set a high enough shutter speed to give you roughly f/4. Or set it to Aperture Priority (Av) and set an aperture of roughly f/3.5 This should give a fast shutter speed, a nice blurred background and also a sharp enough image.

bravo

Thanks for the advice guys, probably be next weekend before I get a chance to try it out, but will let you know how I get on.

jackdaw

Canon EF 70-300 IS USM ... IS is great !!

Paulw

IS isn't much good on a moving subject, unless you use panning mode (if it has it on that lens).

jackdaw

Paulw wrote: »

IS isn't much good on a moving subject, unless you use panning mode (if it has it on that lens).

Aye is does ,, IS mode 2 right ??

Paulw

IS mode 2 for panning. IS mode 1 for non-moving subjects.

But, you're much better off using a high shutter speed than using IS.

bravo

Ah Lads,
I can't get the hang of this at all. My head was spinning trying to figure it out over the weekend. Was practising on horses running in a field. Let me explain in simple "Beginners" language.

I have the Sigma 70-300mm on the Canon 400D. When I switch to TV or AV I manage to adjust the settings as recommended, but the AF doesn't work (maybe its not supposed to in these instances?) So I focus manually, press the button fully to take the shot, and I get a black screen in the viewfinder. I have to press again to release it, and then the photo I get is that taken with the second click.

What am I doing wrong? Is the lens crap (I know.... its the craftsman, not the tools!)? Could anyone please give me a step-by-step in simple terms...please?

Eirebear

bravo wrote: »

Ah Lads,
I can't get the hang of this at all. My head was spinning trying to figure it out over the weekend. Was practising on horses running in a field. Let me explain in simple "Beginners" language.

I have the Sigma 70-300mm on the Canon 400D. When I switch to TV or AV I manage to adjust the settings as recommended, but the AF doesn't work (maybe its not supposed to in these instances?) So I focus manually, press the button fully to take the shot, and I get a black screen in the viewfinder. I have to press again to release it, and then the photo I get is that taken with the second click.

What am I doing wrong? Is the lens crap (I know.... its the craftsman, not the tools!)? Could anyone please give me a step-by-step in simple terms...please?

The only thing that would cause a your viewfinder to go black would be that the shutter is staying closed, but i dont know why a second click would re-open the shutter tbh?

Also, i dont see why the auto focus wont work in TV.....

mdebets

bravo wrote: »

I have the Sigma 70-300mm on the Canon 400D. When I switch to TV or AV I manage to adjust the settings as recommended, but the AF doesn't work (maybe its not supposed to in these instances?)

AF should work fine in TV or AV. What do you mean by it doesn't work? Is the AF doing nothing at all or is it just trying to focus but can't get a lock (in this case, you would hear the motor and it would constantly try to focus)?

bravo wrote: »

So I focus manually, press the button fully to take the shsot, and I get a black screen in the viewfinder. I have to press again to release it, and then the photo I get is that taken with the second click.

That sounds like mirror lock-up to me. You normally use it if you use a tripod and want to reduce camera shake even further, by first locking the mirror and then, with the second click you release the shutter
You can normally switch this on and off in your Custom Functions (not sure, where exactly on the 400D).

Now when I think of it, mirror look-up and AF not working sounds a little bit like the live-view (I'm not using it, so I'm not too sure if that is true). Do you see anything on the LCD on the back while the viewfinder is black?

bravo

Thanks guys,

Good advice. Mdebets, you solved it for me, I think. Mirror Lock-up was on.

One last question re: AF - I'm used to holding the button half-way to AF in auto mode. When I'm in TV or AV Mode I guess I use the button on the back of the camera to set the AF points? Right?

Thanks again everyone.

CabanSail

Just to add that the Guide for Shutter Speed of 1/focal length was for 35mm. You should take into account the Sensor Size multipler as well. Your Canon is X1.6 (I think) so 300mm is equivalent to 480mm on a FFS. That would mean a minimum of 1/500th of a second at full zoom.

I would put on the Auto ISO (not sure if it's called the same thing in Canon) in Shutter Priority mode. That way the camera will ramp up the ISO as required.

Maybe using Continuous Focus rather Single may work better as well.