My photography skills have never improved, but at some point I decided not to worry about it and started enjoying my photography life as a self-proclaimed eternal beginner.
However, even for me, there is one technical issue that I really want to clear.
I’d like to say a farewell to the camera shake when I take photos with a small camera.
I’ve only recently started to get the hang of how to prevent camera shake when using single-lens cameras that are a certain size and weight, such as the K-3III and S5. When I’m taking a photo that really counts, I either lean against a wall or a pillar, or brace my feet, and then I can usually prevent camera shake by firmly supporting the camera with three points – hands and cheekbone – by pushing against each other.
The problem is hand-held shooting with small cameras. With my equipment, the LUMIX GF10 and FUJIFULM XF10, both of which lack image stabilization (when I use them), they produce a lot of blurry photos.
I’m embarrassed to show you this example of a blurry photo. I took this photo to record the information about the exhibition and the atmosphere of the venue, but it was so blurry that the information was useless. 
Even if you carefully hold the camera with both hands and take the shot with the utmost care, there is not much improvement. Sometimes in magazines and other places you see professional and amateur photographers showing off their one-handed, no-look shooting techniques, but to me, they are nothing more than tricks of the gods.
I can’t keep moaning about it forever, so this time I made up my mind to tackle the issue of camera shake prevention as a special week of activities, and I took lots of photos at around 1/50th of a second (a speed for me that is easy to be careless about and blur), and I did a lot of research into how camera shake occurs with the GF10 and how to prevent it. It’s a two-for-one deal: you can improve your photo yield and get material for blog posts at the same time.
I’ll skip over the intermediate results of my various struggles, which have zero informational value, and present the results of my research. This is just my case. I don’t know if it will be of any use to anyone else, but
1. In my case, I found that the worst thing that could happen was when the camera would tilt slightly when I pressed the shutter button with my right finger.
2. With a camera with a viewfinder, you can kill the movement of the camera by supporting it with your folded arms and head, but with a small camera without a viewfinder, you have to support it with your two outstretched arms to look at the rear monitor, which makes it unstable and difficult to prevent the camera from moving.
3. Since it is not possible to take a photo without looking at the rear monitor, it is necessary to devise a way to create a shooting posture that allows you to see the monitor and is also stable to some extent.
4. As a result of trial and error, we were able to improve camera shake by changing the way we hold the camera as shown in the diagram below.
Sorry for the childish illustration.
Hold the camera in your right hand so that your index finger is on the shutter button, and place it so that the shutter button is directly above the left palm. Then press the gear with both up & down force. You don’t actually need to put that much pressure on it, but it’s like fixing it in a vice.
If you hold the camera in this way, with the left palm resting in front of your chin or mouth, you can stabilize the camera quite well and take pictures while checking the monitor with your left eye.
By the end of the reinforcement week, I had gained a lot of confidence.
This is a picture I took while doing my best in my usual posture. Pay attention to the flower in the middle.
Up until now, I had thought that this was about my limit, and that it was good enough.
But this is a photo after I improved my posture.
I’m glad I was able to take a decent photo of this, even though I’m more of an ‘enjoyment’ type of person who doesn’t care about technique.
Miffy in the park. I’m sorry for taking such sloppy photos of her up until now, but today I was able to take a decent, clear photo of her.
Even with the small GF10, I was able to take a sharp photo of the bridge arch, which made me quite happy with myself.
So,
this may be a topic that those of us with similar interests have already heard about, but as a perpetual beginner, I’m feeling a little fulfilled this week. Sorry for the inconvenience.
