Photography with shaky hands - any advice?

Nature Talk
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This is probably the best general piece of advice, since it doesn’t require any extra props (which aren’t always available) nor any special techniques (which can be easy to forget). It’s also just a very good habit to get into anyway, since there are often several other factors in play that are even harder to control than hand-shake, such as poor ambient light, the limitations of the camera, very limited time in which to take the shots, etc, etc.

I use a pocket-sized compact camera which is more or less equivalent to a mobile phone. Even if I use the best settings available (including flash) and keep myself steady, I usually find that many of the shots are inadequate for identification purposes (especially for small subjects). Thus, the more shots I take, the better chance I have of getting those few lucky ones which somehow hit the sweet spot!

Needless to say, distance from the subject can also be a very important factor, especially when employing zoom. Generally speaking, the closer I am to the subject, the less effect hand-shake should have - except, perhaps, for very close macro shots. To compensate for the latter, I often take a few extra shots from slightly further away if there’s enough time to do so.

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GorillaPod or a similar small tripod made for a smartphone. Or take mutliple pics and hope one is not blurry (my approach).

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I really appreciate all the great advice here, thank you so much!

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Yet another suggestion for Gorilla Pod. I’m wondering if should get one for smaller camera filming.

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Thanks to an ultra-rare movement disorder, I have a lot of experience with shaky hands, among other fun stuff.

One of my first suggestions would be to let your doctor/specialist know tremors interfere with your photography/hobby/etc. I did, and the treatment/approach changed to focus on that activity. It’s one thing to say “I have tremors.” It’s another thing to explain how your tremors affect your day to day activities. Here is an example of my redacted visit notes.

Assessment and Plan
The following list includes any diagnoses that were discussed at your visit.
Assessment Note: [ltdbjd] is a —year-old male with —, and essential tremor. He continues to experience tremor in both hands, which is functionally limiting, particularly for fine motor tasks and activities such as photography …. The plan was to increase the — dosage to — mg up to — times daily as needed for tremor control, with the rationale that higher and more frequent dosing may provide more sustained symptom relief ….

I agree with everything everybody has included in this string. Things that were helpful for me include proper breathing. Take a deep breath in, let it about half-way out, hold your breath and depress the shutter. Some important points include not holding your breath for more time than it takes to depress the shutter (1 to 2 seconds). The longer you hold your breath, the more motion blur will be introduced into the photo. Another key point is to press the shutter release gently. Punching it, stabbing at it, etc. can move the phone and create blur.

Another helpful thing was to reduce how much I hold the phone or press the shutter release. Others mentioned tripods and other assisting devices and bracing. If I can’t do either of those for some reason, I use two hands and tuck my elbows in. I try to hold my phone/camera as lightly as possible. The tighter you hold it, the move motion blur you can expect.

People mentioned earbuds. Depending on your phone, you can set it to release the shutter with the volume button (and sometimes to burst mode for multiple photos with one shutter release). This will also work with the volume buttons on earphones, and keep you from stabbing the phone or moving it while pressing the shutter button. That said, I’ve never tried earbuds to take photos. Another suggestion is to use the timed shutter release. Set up the phone, set the timer (2 seconds, 5 seconds, etc.), and let it release the shutter without you manually touching it.

Speaking of bracing, if you look at most of my observation photos, there aren’t many photos looking straight down at something. Most are taken at some degree of an angle. This is because I set my phone or small camera (TG-6) on the ground to brace it, lean it forward, and then take the photo(s). I took some of the higher angles by stacking things up and resting the camera on the stack. Some of the higher angles pointing downward were taken with me stacking something up and setting my phone on the stack. These are attempts to limit my contact with the phone/camera and to create a steady base.

For example:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/387349650
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/385777710
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/385163559

Of course, this is fairly easy to do when most of your close up observations are dead insects on the ground. It certainly won’t work for everything.

Speaking of stacking, my phone is probably too old to do this with, but I’ve found in camera focus stacking to be amazing at limiting motion blur. I haven’t looked into it, but there are likely third-party apps that let you focus-stack from a camera. My first experience with in-camera focus stack was with the used TG-6 I bought a few months ago. Note that in-camera focus stack is different than using Helicon or Zerene stacking software.

Another tip is to speed up the shutter. The faster the shutter, the less motion blur you’ll have. You can accomplish this a few different ways. One is with light control. The more light you have, the faster the shutter speed. This can be natural light, or a small LED light. Another is with shutter priority. Depending on your phone, you might need a third-party phone app that lets you set a shutter priority. In this mode, you determine how fast you want your shutter to actuate, and the camera/phone sets the other things for you (aperture and ISO).

I imagine there are bluetooth shutter releases as well. I have them for my cameras, but have never used one for my phone.

Keep in mind that digital zoom magnifies not only the subject being photographed, but it magnifies hand movement too. Use it as sparingly as possible. The more tips in this thread you follow, the more leeway you’ll have to zoom. One option is to take the photo from farther away and crop the photo. You lose pixels and can end up with a less detailed/sharp photo, but it may be preferred to a blurry photo. Along the same lines, you can shoot in 4K video in good light and pull a sharp frame or two for your photos. I’ve never done this myself.

I understand there are some AI software programs that help reduce motion blur in photos that have been taken. I’ve never used them, so I can’t speak to their effectiveness.

Hope my/our experience can help others!

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Also, if the lighting is decent and your phone can support it, shooting a ‘slow-mo’ or high-speed video (60 frames a second or higher) can sometimes help capture something that’s moving very fast like a bird or bug in flight or a scurrying pollinator, etc.

High speed phone recordings are usually limited to short clips, which is all you need for vids that you will hand browse for decent frames. Also, depending on the phone, it usually means shooting at a lower than full resolution, so be sure to try and get in pretty close as practical.

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Oh yes! I once managed to extract a jpg of a blue blur from a slow-mo video that I took of a spot in the river where a kingfisher was flying into a tunnel to a nest. About 3 minutes of slow-mo video for a single frame in which it could be identified :joy:

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Thanks for the nicely detailed summary. Very thorough. I’m glad you mentioned lighting too, as it’s one of the most commonly overlooked ones, especially with phone captures.

Something I’ve had luck with for bug captures in gloomy spaces is one of those low-cost LED headlamps. It frees up your hands. Or, better still, a little LED flood box with built in tiny legs so you can (sometimes) just drop it near the subject.

Cautions with LED external lighting? Colour range (some are too limited) and multiplexing. That’s what some lamps use to extend battery life and prevent overheating by turning the LEDs off and on, quicker than your eye – but not necessarily your camera – can see, often resulting in dark bars.

In-camera stacking is pretty cool, but limited to still or very slow subjects. Another route is to capture a short ‘focus stack clip’ vid moving through a subject’s focus range in a second or so.

Then you review and extract the handful of frames that cover the range the best and run these through stacking software.

One of the easiest and quickest stackingware packages can be found inside the free Affinity package. It’s hidden, but it is in there and it works great.

For motion blur removal, I use an old edition of Topaz Sharpen AI. Works best where the blur is clearly linear. Like say, tiny short white lines from specular highlights off a dimpled beetle shell. It allows you to slide adjust a preview so you can see where those lines become dots again.

When I started macro, I took the popular advice of using a tripod to steady the shot but it only took a few very frustrating trips to realize how (for my level of patience, anyways) impractical it was to try and setup a tripod for the bulk of stuff I was seeing.

Much too slow to setup and often impossible in close confines.

And this goes for birds and bugs.

Another ‘hard-learned’ lesson? The more prepared you are for the lighting and lens/camera settings, the more ‘lucky’ you’ll get.

Happy trails.

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An app suggestion that I thought I would share that I have found useful for phone macro shooting. I’m on Android but this one is also an iApp.

Instead of the stock camera app, try a camera app called ProShot to give you the ability to shut off most of the human-centric AI interference. Or kick some back (like image stabilization, say) in more selectively. Plus shutter and aperture manual controls in a more easy to use layout.

Also, it allows you to access the LED lamp from the same setting control as the flash. It’s a fairly harsh light but can make the tracking of wee scurriers in dark places much easier, and most of the time, that’s preferred over a darkened guess with flash. Which, in a phone, is just the LED lamp anyways, with yes, a short more intense light. But I favour ‘something’ in the frame over nothing because you couldn’t see well enough to frame it.

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I had shaky hands for a few years due to an injury.

First of all, just in case it isn’t obvious - if you want to use any more-advanced photography tools and settings, use a dedicated photography app. iNat’s built-in camera is very convenient, but it cannot beat a purpose-made app. Usually the default “camera” app on your phone has a lot of advanced settings hidden in the menus somewhere. It pays to get familiar with them.

Something I used a lot – alternate methods of triggering the camera / taking the image. I liked to move the “snap” button so I could use it with my left hand, or when holding the phone on its side, etc.; or even to let any double-tap on the screen take a photo.

also: sit down. find a good spot - a bench, a rock, anywhere you won’t get stuck - and plant your butt right down. you’ll get a lot more stability throughout your body, your stamina will last longer, and you’ll be closer to most potential targets. animals will be less scared too.

use your wheelchair, if you can. use a crutch, a walking stick - your aids are there to bring you freedom, you should use them. there are also some folding-seats that are extremely lightweight which you can open and place down anywhere you need.

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I have several monopods that I dual-use as lightweight, highly adjustable walking sticks. A new one from SmallRig actually has single-step telescoping (NOT cheap); while it’s heavier, the convenience of that step is wondrous.

If you find yourself getting serious about photography, getting a used one-generation behind micro 4/3 camera (more affordable) offers a tremendous amount of control, and most importantly miraculous image stabilization built-in. ***This depends on magnitude of the shakes; mine tend to be rapid and somewhat small, and the camera generates a remarkably stable image

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Moderator note: I removed the tracking info from the link above as the Discourse spam detector flagged the post.

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sit down. find a good spot - a bench, a rock, anywhere you won’t get stuck - and plant your butt right down.

Butt-planting, like tripods, is rarely an option, at least in my experience with bug-hunting. And even with birding, you need to be careful with potential tick activity.

Also, you have to be careful not to kill or evict any small stuff that might not survive a butt descent. Hit an anthill, mind you, and you’ll soon understand.

Great advice about dedicated apps. Also, check to see if your default camera app has a ‘pro’ mode. It often is buried. If it does, you might get what you need from that.

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I’d like to make sure we are comparing apples to apples. The Topic is asking for advice for photography with shaky hands. @ astra_the_dragon is providing just such advice - sit down because it provides more stability, better stamina, brings you closer to potential targets, you’re not scaring away animals, etc. He’s spot on. In this case, butt-planting and tripods are options. In some cases, they could be the only options.

Of course, your advice is sound too. Ticks, inadvertently crushing things, or the always dreaded, “Oh ****!!! I just sat on a Red Imported Fire Ant (Solenopsis invicta) colony!” are real hazards as well.

I’d like to make a general comment, not related to the topic or any particular reply. Reasons for involvement in this type of activity, or any activity for that matter, may be to observe, identify, photograph, relax, find peace and serenity, think, find yourself, get away from it all, stress relief, etc. There are a number of different ways to meet these goals. Each are specific to the person, and none are right or wrong. I think it comes down to personal preference, style, technique, success rates, physical ability and limitations, etc.

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Shaky hands is likely paired with … having planted my butt … how do I get airborne again ? Stand and walk is one thing, up and down is a fresh challenge (as I see with my hiking companions)

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Again, the walking stick helps.

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For me photography of an organism (especially a small one) is much easier with an actual camera than with my iphone. Phones are just not built to be easily held steady for pics and if there’s a glare on the screen you can’t be sure if your shot is any good. If you have a telephoto camera you can stand back and zoom in on the subject (unless it’s really tiny) and not have to hunch over or contort yourself to get the phone in position, which I find exhausting and often results in shaky pics.

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If I can’t brace, I will keep a stance that is a frozen motion and make planned cyclical movements to stop unplanned ones.
That can be one leg slightly forward and a wider stance or on one knee as if I was getting up, while slightly moving the upper body and hands in a way that keeps the camera direction as steady as I can.
This is my bird photo stretch to complement the moss yoga poses.

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I want to thank everyone again for contributingto this thread! Here’s the webinar. I addressed this question near the end in the Q&A. I couldn’t cover everything posted here, but it was helpful in giving broad advice, and some specific suggestions.

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too late, but anyway…

I’ve seen newly dry alcoholics with the shakes use a tea towel around their neck, holding it with both hands, to stabilise a cup, and get it to their mouth without spilling it.