Lessons Learned: Hold Your Breath

One of the most useful among the nerdy functions in my Nikon D100 is its ability to record almost every bit of technical information about every image I shoot. Here, for example, is some of the information it kept about this image:

Exposure Time: 1/50 second
F-Stop: 5.6
Focal Length: 135mm

The only angle I could get on this particular branch with the longest lens I carried (my 35-135mm zoom) was standing in an alder thicket across the river, shooting between branches that would have interfered if I'd moved the camera higher, lower or to either side. And the overcast day meant I'd have to compromise both shutter speed and aperture selection to get a decent exposure.

Obviously, conditions were less than optimum. A good rule of thumb for selecting shutter speeds is to use the effective focal length as the shutter speed. For example, at my 135mm focal length, I'd like to use at least 1/135 second. But at f/5.6, the widest aperture I wanted to use in this instance, the quickest shutter speed I could get was 1/50 second.

Using a tripod was impossible due to the location, but I was fortunate enough to have a small tree to lean against, so I braced up as well as possible for a hand-held exposure (elbows tucked in against my chest, left wrist touching my chin, right wrist tucked against the left)) as I leaned on the tree trunk for stability.

I took a few deep breaths, relaxed, then took another deep breath and let it out half way before holding it, simultaneously s-q-u-e-e-z-i-n-g the shutter button ever so gently. I repeated the process about a half-dozen times to increase the odds of getting a sharp image.

It paid off with an image I've chosen to be among the 12 that represent my 2002 Maine experience.