Camera shake and shutter speed

[soumya63]

Hi guys, after so many years of amateur photography experience with Wide-angle, normal and short telephoto lens, today I have learned a big lesson about the image sharpness and camera shake!

I was kind of proud about my ability to take good photograph at 1/15 shutter speed with 58mm Canon FD on Canon AE1 program. With that ignorant bliss, I bought my Canon 300mm f4L for my D30. Yesterday when I received my lens, the first thing I have done to run to Elizabeth Park Lake or Fremont to shoot some really sharp picture of ducks and pelicans. Overconfident with my human tripod ability, I set the shutter speed at 320 and kept on hand held shooting merrily.

After returning home I could not believe my eyes, at 1:1 magnification the picture looked so soft on monitor. I could not see any tell tale camera shake signature but I could not count fibers on the duck feather also.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid28/p915b77044746d9ead75e9c7ccee64c97/fdf672cb.jpg

Close up details of the above image
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid28/p9f0ad970ca5f3eea6d4e0842542b8530/fdf672c8.jpg

I was so disappointed. Searched on Internet to see some tack sharp images taken by Canon 300mm, but could not find any as all web pictures are highly compressed and reduced in size. I thought my lens might have some problem, cause 1/320 shutter speed with 300mm should be ok. I knew the 1.6 times magnification factor of D30, but could not able to digest the softness was from micro camera shake.

Today before sending the lens back to service, I though why not give it a try with higher shutter speed. It was night and no bird to shoot, so I fitted a Canon EF25 extension tube after my 300mm tele to reduce the minimum focussing distance and shoot the ear ring of my wife from a distance of 5 feet. The picture was shot at full open aperture 4 with built-in flash. Shutter speed was 200 (but this time very short duration of flash acted like a high shutter speed) and hand held the lens. The result was simple astounding. Now I can count each and every microscopic velvety hair on the skin, see the reflected and refracted lights from the tiny ear ring stone and all the folds on the skin. Now that’s what I called sharpness.

So lesson I have learned that with Ultra Telephoto, the minimum handheld shutter speed for a non IS lens on D30 should be greater than inverse of 1.6 times focal length on the lens. So for 300mm, it should be 1/500. Otherwise, the pictures will be soft due to micro camera shake, which may not be visible at small size print but it will be strong enough to make this tack sharp lens a soft one.

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid28/pd0fb9fc6d1544ad5259e0e6fec65c185/fdf672c4.jpg

Closeup details of the above image
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid28/pdb5a14a930c90e44cbec7d8fd348fe02/fdf672c0.jpg

[oops]

Thanks for sharing this. I have been bitten by this on some Great Horned owl shots that will never come back for a re-take. I had a full frame face shot complete with half-hooded eyes and in my case it was the 70-200L at full telephoto. I could have kicked myself. I would have loved to call the shots "soft" but they were just plain blurred!

Somewhere on the net I recall another photographer using the 1/500 number as the only reliable standard for full telephoto with the D30. It will be the one I use from now on in case I catch his cousin or something.

[Griffin]

Thanks for sharing. I find many of my photos taken with EF2x II are "soft" are actually a product of hand-shake blurr and sometimes I blame it on the TC. The EF2x II may not be very sharp but it should not be that bad. I think should bring along my tripod (even monopod is not that reliable in some cases) when I try to shoot wild life again.

[sasc]

I am not steady and other than the 50mm lens with fairly fast shutter, I absolutely have to have the IS. It really makes a big difference

[KHogan]

I recently read an article about someone else's experience with this very phenomenon. They also concluded that the rule of thumb with the D30 involved taking into account the 1.6 multiplier as you have found. Glad to hear it wasn't your lens after all.

To embed images, you have to use square brackets with the words "img" and "/img" in the square brackets around the URL where you have your image. That's not a very clear explanation. If you click on the "Help" link at the top of this page and follow the instructions on the right hand side of the page there, you will see an example.

Kharim

[soumya63]

Khogan wrote:
I recently read an article about someone else's experience with this very phenomenon. They also concluded that the rule of thumb with the D30 involved taking into account the 1.6 multiplier as you have found. Glad to hear it wasn't your lens after all.

To embed images, you have to use square brackets with the words "img" and "/img" in the square brackets around the URL where you have your image. That's not a very clear explanation. If you click on the "Help" link at the top of this page and follow the instructions on the right hand side of the page there, you will see an example.

Kharim


Thanks Kharim, actually I found out that tag the very first day, but I do not have any personal web server or know any other server which will serve my photographs. I tried with Ofoto, but their links involved typing password etc. Is there any free service available for posting my photographs and providing straight links to them?