Hi and welcome to Episode 93 of the Photography Explained podcast.
I’m your host Rick, and in each episode I will try to explain one photographic thing to you in plain English in less than 10 minutes (ish) without the irrelevant details. What I tell you is based on my lifetime of photographic experience. And not Google.
Before I go on if you have a question you would like me to answer just go to photographyexplainedpodcast.com/start
Here is the answery bit
To hold a camera properly you should
- Hold the body and lens with your left hand
- Hold the grip in your right hand
- Stand straight
- Legs slightly bent at the knees
- Feet apart in line with the shoulders and slightly pointed out
- Tuck your arms in tight
- Relax
- And breathe in and slowly out before gently pressing the shutter release
This is how you hold a camera properly.
You can listen to the episode here
Or keep on reading. Or do both. Entirely up to you!
OK – that is how you hold a camera. Let’s look at this quickly
Hold the body and lens with your left hand
I cradle the camera body and lens in my left hand, holding them gently but firmly, and taking the weight in my left hand. Taking the weight of the body and lens in my left-hand frees the right hand up for taking the photo.
And if you have a long lens you can put your left hand under the lens instead to make sure that it is properly balanced – move your hand until it is centred under the weight. That doesn’t make sense, does it? I mean move your hand along the lens until the camera is balanced.
Does that make sense?
But make sure you are not affecting the focussing though.
Zooming
If you want to change the focal length by zooming in or out you should be able to do this with your left hand while holding the camera and body but do this and get the focal length you want before taking the photo.
Hold the grip in your right hand
Most camera bodies have some sort of grip for the right hand, and this is where you should find the shutter release button. With a well-made camera how you hold the camera in your hands should be a natural, instinctive thing.
Wrap your fingers around the grip, leaving your first finger (not sure what it is called but you know what I mean?) to take the photo. Scratch that, a quick Google search confirms that it is the first finger. I should have known that!
I know what I said about Google, but the search was limb-related and not photography related.
Your right hand is used to steady the camera and take the photo. You can do this as the weight is being taken by your left hand.
Stand straight
Yep, stand up nice and straight. You will be more stable if you do this.
Legs slightly bent at the knees
Don’t have your legs ramrod straight, give yourself a little bit of flex by slightly bending your knees.
Feet apart in line with the shoulders and slightly pointed out
This gives you a bit more stability, spreading the load.
Tuck your arms in tight
I tuck my arms into my sides just before I take a photo.
Relax
Just relax – you are taking a photo after all and not trying to hit a target. Relax and you are more stable.
And breathe in and slowly out before gently pressing the shutter release
Breathe in and out slowly, nice, and gentle and relaxed. And gently press the shutter release button to take a photo. I do this by rolling my finger over the shutter release button. There is no point doing all this and then stabbing the shutter release button now is there?
Do I really need to do all this?
If you want the sharpest photos that you can get shooting handheld then yes. But don’t worry, with a little bit of practice this will become second nature to you.
Getting the right camera for you
To find the camera that fits comfortably you really have to physically hold it, which means going to an actual camera shop. I know, an actual shop.
This is a good thing as there are lots of wonderful people working in camera shops who provide lots of great advice. And if we do not go to these shops they will close and all those good folk will lose their jobs and we will not have camera shops to go to.
So support your local camera shop if you can.
What if I am left-handed?
Great question which I do not know the answer to. I will look into this and cover this in a future episode.
What camera settings should I use?
Well, I will cover that one in the next episode which makes sense.
Does the size of the camera matter?
Yes and no – I get fed up saying it depends. Get the camera that works for you. If you do not like the feel of the camera that you buy you will not enjoy it as much though.
This depends very much on you, the size of your hands, what weight you are comfortable carrying, and how long you are planning on being out taking photos.
But the good news is that cameras these days are smaller and lighter than they used to be.
What about phones?
Well, this is a problem for me. While my iPhone XS is a miracle of technology I hate the ergonomics of it.
There aren’t any basically.
I have to put it in a case or I drop it. I have a slim case with material that I can actually grip rather than the useless, ridiculous polished round body of the phone. This really is a major design flaw to me.
So basically I hold my phone with both hands and find taking a photo an uncomfortable experience every time.
What do I do?
I use a Canon 6D which is in my humble opinion one of the best handling cameras. I have used Canon cameras for years and they really have got the ergonomics down.
I also have an Olympus EM5. This camera is smaller than my Canon 6D and I have to be honest I find it less comfortable to use to take photos handheld.
Accessories
You can get all sorts of grips and other things to help but the Canon 6D is so well made I do not need anything else. I used to have a battery grip for my Canon 5D which gave me a better hold when shooting in portrait orientation but for the photography that I do this is not really a problem.
Again if you are after a grip the best thing to do is to try them in a camera shop and see how one feels.
The best accessory for getting sharp photos is a tripod though – more on that in episode 95 I think.
The talky bit
Why am I talking about this? Well, this is a fundamental thing in photography, holding a camera correctly.
This is important as you want to take the sharpest photos that you can. If you take a photo that is blurry there is pretty much nothing that you can do about it.
You will not get away with taking a blurry photo trust me.
And whilst I take most photos with a tripod there are times when I cannot physically do this, so this is important knowledge for all of us.
When I was writing this I had to get my camera out to remind myself exactly how I hand hold my camera, as this has for so long been second nature to me, something that I really do not think about.
So practise this until you are comfortable and it is instinctive for you too.
And in saying all of this I am assuming that you are looking through the viewfinder of the camera and not the LCD screen. This is the old-school way of taking photos, which we used to do back in the days long before LCD screens appeared on cameras.
If you are taking a photo looking at the LCD screen then this changes things, but the principles above will still apply.
For handheld photography, I always use the viewfinder unless I need to hold the camera way above my head to get the shot that I want.
One line summary
Practise holding your camera and this will help you get the sharpest photos that you can handheld.
Related episodes
Well, the next episode will be all about the camera settings for handheld photography.
Next episode
Like I say, the logical next episode.
Shout out
This space needs filling so get in touch and get your shout-out on my ever-growing podcast.
I’m done
Thanks for listening to my small but perfectly formed podcast. To find out more about my podcast and do stuff to help me check out Photographyexplainedpodcast.com/start.
Brought to you by
This episode was brought to by caffeine courtesy of Alta Rica coffee.
I’ve been Rick McEvoy, thanks again very much for listening to me and for giving me 12 ½ (ish) minutes of your valuable time, and I will see you on the next episode.
Cheers from me Rick
OK – that was the podcast episode.
Want to know more?
Head over to the Start page on the Photography Explained Podcast website to find out more.
And here is the list of episodes published to date – you can listen to any episode straight from this page which is nice.
Let me know if there is a photography thing that you want me to explain and I will add it to my list. Just head over to the This is my list of things to explain page of this website to see what is on there already.
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And finally a little bit about me
Finally, yes this paragraph is all about me – check out my Rick McEvoy Photography website to find out more about me and my architectural, construction, real estate and travel photography work. I also write about general photography stuff, all in plain English without the irrelevant detail.
Thank you
Thanks for listening to my podcast (if you did) and reading this blog post (which I assume you have done as you are reading this).
Cheers from me Rick
