Photography 101: How to avoid camera shake / fuzzy photos

Have you ever ordered prints and upon viewing the finished image there was a slight blur in the photo? It’s likely that you did not adhere to one of the basic principles in photography in order to avoid camera shake.

Camera shake occurs when one is hand-holding the camera and the shutter speed of the photo is lower than the inverse of your camera’s focal length. For example, if you are shooting with a 50mm lens, your shutter speed will need to be at least 1/50th of a second in order to increase your chances of a sharp image.

If you are shooting with a digital SLR (single lens reflex) camera, it is likely you will need to apply a crop factor to determine the necessary shutter speed due to digital camera sensors not being a 1:1 ratio. For my Canon cameras, I need to apply a crop factor of 1.6x to my focal length to arrive at the required shutter speed. For example, applying the 1.6x crop factor to the same 50mm lens yields a suggested shutter speed of 1/80th of a second (50*1.6).

To illustrate, the following images were taken with a 50mm lens on my digital SLR camera. As we learned above, it is necessary to shoot at a minimum shutter speed of 1/80th of a second. The first image was shot at 1/50th of a second, and the second photo was taken at 1/80th of a second. Note the difference in the sharpness of the photos between the two.

Camera Shake