Why are my photos blurry? Are you holding your DSLR camera correctly?

I have just bought a telephoto lens for my DSLR camera (more on that in another post).  After taking quite a few experimental photos I noticed that it's a bit hit-and-miss whether the pictures are blurry or not with high zoom levels, even with the image stabiliser switched on.

So, why is that?!

Well I think I understand the answer now - I'm holding the camera wrongly so it is shaking more than it should.

Here's a video by a serious-sounding American guy explaining why you should use an 'underhand' position for your left hand: How to hold your DSLR camera

Also take a look at the example pictures in this article that show how to hold the camera in both horizontal and vertical shooting orientations.

You should be able to see that using an underhand position forces your elbows in to your body, which provides an extra level of stability.

Canon 650D Tip: Depth of Field / Aperture Preview Button

I came across this great tip when reading the manual - yes, I've decided to do that after initially putting the battery in and throwing the manual to one side!

You can press the Depth of Field Preview button, which will close the aperture to match your current setting.  This allows you to see how the depth of field changes, but importantly you'll also be able to see how much light is coming into the camera.

I think this is a really useful tip, so have a go at the following to help understand why it is useful.

(1) Set the camera to manual mode (M on the function wheel on the top of the camera).

(2) Adjust the f-stop value to the smallest value possible.  You can do this by holding the "Av" button on the back of the camera and then using the scrolling wheel on the top of the camera.

(3) Look through the viewfinder.  Whilst doing so, hold down the Depth of Field (DoF) Preview button, located on the front of the camera just below the lens release button (see the picture above).  You'll note that nothing really happens.  This is because the camera by default leaves the aperture fully open and you've selected the smallest f-stop value, which gives you the fully open aperture.

(4) Now look at what happens when you adjust the f-stop to a much bigger value and while looking through the viewfinder hold the DoF Preview button again.  This time you'll hear the aperture adjust to your selected setting and you'll see the picture get darker.

Canon 650D Tip: Adjusting ISO

Here's how to adjust your ISO setting manually.  Get used to doing this so that you can do it quickly whilst looking through the viewfinder.

You need to make sure you aren't in automatic mode first!  Using the function wheel on the top of the camera, set the camera to manual mode (M) or one of the partially manual modes such as Aperture Priority (Av) or Shutter Priority (Tv).

Look through the viewfinder and half press the shutter button.  At the bottom of the view you will see the current settings.  Towards the right hand side it will tell you the current ISO value.  "A" means ISO is set to automatic.

Press the ISO button (1) and all settings except the ISO setting will disappear from the view.
Use the scrolling wheel (2) to adjust the ISO setting.  Note: You need to start adjusting the value within a couple of seconds of pressing (1), otherwise the wheel will end up adjusting another setting instead.

As you should know from the ISO guide linked in a previous post, the higher the ISO speed the brighter the picture will appear.  Be careful, as higher ISO settings introduce graining to the picture.  As a general rule I try to keep the ISO setting as low as possible.

Understanding Aperture, Depth of Field and ISO

DSLR cameras are complex.  There are loads of settings that can be fiddled with to get the perfect shot.  They have very good automatic modes, but you need to know how to use the manual settings for particular types of shot as the camera can't always guess what you're after.

There are three main settings to get used to: F-stop, ISO and Shutter Speed.  There are loads of resources on the web that describe the relationship between these settings.  I found the following videos really useful to understand them (there is no video specifically about shutter speed here, but it is covered within these videos):
A guide to F-stop
A guide to ISO
A guide to depth of field

I decided that the best approach was to stick the camera on manual mode and experiment with the settings to get used them.  I sat and did this when I got a bit of spare time and didn't care about whether I wanted to keep the shots, so the pressure was off!

I recommend you do the same.  About an hour of experimenting later and I have a much better understanding of what settings give good results, so I don't have to hunt so much for settings when taking a shot.

I'll post some pictures later so you get an idea of what I did.