The Digital Photography Book

Secret Weapon for Sharper Hand-Held Shots

If you’re shooting hand-held outdoors in the middle of a sunny day, chances are your shots are going to be pretty sharp. Since there’s so much light, your camera’s shutter will only be open for a fraction of a second (literally like 1/4000 of a second), getting all the light it needs to make the photo quickly. At super-fast shutter speeds like that, even if you weren’t perfectly still, you’d get a sharp photo. However, in low-light situations (like in a church, or a restaurant, or at sunrise or sunset), way more light is needed, so the shutter has to stay open longer—maybe a full second or more (depending ...