How Slow is too Slow

[symes]

Or maybe how steady are your hands?

At what point does the shutter speed become too slow to hold it by hand?

Yes the obvious answer is when the image is blurry but I would like to hear what you think?

The worst is a picture that looks fine until you get it on the monitor and there is just something a tad out of focus...

Let's hear it...

[Andy_T]

The 'rule of thumb' is 1/effective focal length of camera seconds.

That would be 1/125 for a 50 mm lens on a 1.6 crop body.
But as stated, it's a 'rule of thumb'. You might get sharp shots at 1/60, but you might also blur them at 1/200 ... depending on your technique and degree of 'shaky hands'.

Best regards,
Andy

[Toogy]

I personally find that I can get reasonable shots all the way down to 1/30th or so handheld at 75mm, but again it depends on your technique.
But the rules are like what the above poster stated, except I ignore the crop factor

[charlesu]

Depends on your hands, the length of the lens (see above about inverting the length), image stabilization and so forth. Someone with really steady hands might hold a 100mm lens steady at 1/60th of a second but you might also find that, on closer examination, there's a slight bit of blur you didn't notice. Canon first advertised IS this way. They showed the before shot which looked fine. Then they showed the IS shot and WHOA, much better.

Generally the inverse of focal length is a good rule of thumb. IS can help you a bit. So can a $50 tripod if you cannot yet afford IS lenses. Also, note that the 20D produces stellar quality even at ISO of 800 or 1600. So, if it is a choice of getting the shot, pump up the ISO or get a tripod.