Tag Archives: photography tips

How I Hold My Camera – Best Practice Tips for Outdoor Photographers

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Today’s lesson is called “How I Hold My Camera.” 

I realize this might seem like a rudimentary topic, but I’ve actually heard from more than a few photographers who are struggling with this, especially shooters who have recently switched from DSLRs to Mirrorless. I received one email from a gentleman who was having problems with cramps in his hand when he was trying to shoot.

Given that DSLRs are often twice as big and twice as heavy as mirrorless cameras like the Fujifilm X-T3. My guess is that they’re having a hard time adapting to the much smaller and lighter bodies. 

So, I’m going to play show and tell and let you know I hold my camera. If you’re having a hard time getting comfortable with the camera, then hopefully you’ll find these tips to be useful. 

Left hand

Under the lens. Always. I’ve seen people hold the camera with the left hand over the top of the lens, but that’s not the best way to hold the camera. Aside from making you look a bit amateurish, it doesn’t offer you the same level of stability and functional control. 

If I’m using both hands, then I always hold my camera with my hand cradled under the body, not holding hard, just resting it there, and this puts your fingers in the right place to operate the focus and aperture ring. This also gives you a much more steady grip if you’re using a bigger lens. 

Right hand

My right hand grabs the molded grip in an easy, natural way. Not tightly at all. It’s just there to help keep the camera steady and keep my finger on the shutter.

By not holding it very tightly, my right hand is also free to operate the other controls, like the dials on the top deck and various buttons and the focus joystick on the back. 

In fact, when the camera is up to my eye, it’s hardly holding the camera at all, it’s a surprisingly loose grip that offers me that that extra stability. 

Of course, there are some times when I’m shooting one handed. I’ll grip the body a little more tightly, but I’m not squeezing very hard at all. Most of the stability comes from just resting my fingers and thumb on the contours of the body, and this puts my finger right there above the shutter. 

I realize that everyone’s hands are different size and shape, so it might take some practice for you to get a feel for the best, most stable one-handed grip.

However, in most situations, I’m just doing this little back and forth dance between my two hands, but neither hand is holding very tightly at all. Sure, I might have a little firmer grip with a bigger lens, or when using the battery grip, but again, I’m never squeezing  very hard. 

Natural Tripod

When I’m shooting handheld, especially when I’m using slightly slower shutter speeds, or if I need added stability, I usually try to hold my camera up to my face and suck my elbows into my chest. This creates a natural tripod between my elbows and my face. 

When I’m about to shoot, I’ll slowly let my breath out, the right when it’s at the bottom of my breathing cycling, when my body is the most still, that’s when I press the shutter. 

The Strap

Security

This is a big one with me. I always use a strap. Always. There’s never a time when my strap is not on the camera. It’s always there, and I use it for security, safety and stability. 

It ensures that I won’t ever drop the camera, and because I know it’s always there, it allows me to keep that relaxed grip on my camera, because I know I can always just let it drop safely back down. I’m so used to having it there, that it feels completely natural.

Funny story. No… It’s actually a scary story. There was one time a couple of years ago, when I was shooting right next a glacier pool. The tripod was precariously perched on this little incline right by the water, because that was the vantage point I wanted.

At one point, I accidentally kicked the tripod and it started tipping forward. Without even thinking, I just threw my hand across and snagged the strap with my forearm, and saved the whole rig from falling into the iceberg filled lake. Yikes!!!

Stability

I often shoot using the live view mode on my LCD screen. If I’m holding the camera away from my body, then I’ll use the strap to help brace the camera and give me extra stability. 

I do this a couple different ways. Pulling it tight against my neck gives me an extremely stable grip. This method is very effective for ensuring the kind of sharpness you seek in your images. I’ll often shoot down to single digit shutter speeds and still get sharp images using this method.

I can do this same thing down at my waist, just by flipping the screen up. By pulling tight on the strap, I get that extra degree of steadiness. 

If I’m shooting one handed, I’ll grab and hold the strap with my left hand. This gives me that same level of stability and it also allows me to shoot at different vantage points, like over my head, using the flip screen, or holding it down below while shooting from a low vantage point.

So, again, I can’t accentuate enough how important the strap is in my life with the camera. It offers steadiness, and it offers freedom. And if I need to get it out of the way, I just sling it around my shoulder.

Freedom

The strap offers me an incredible degree of creative freedom and liberation from always being tethered to your tripod.

I know that there are some photographers out there who never use the strap. These are usually people who almost always shoot with the tripod, and they don’t want it to get in the way. If you’re one of those people, then I can’t force you to use the strap, but I don’t see why you wouldn’t. I just think it makes life so much easier and more fun.

Think about it, this means you can never just walk around with the camera around your neck as you’re looking at the world and surveying the scene. It also means that whenever you take it out of your bag, you have to grab it and hold it with this level of desperate security, so that you won’t accidentally drop it. And really, how fun is that?

If you really don’t want to have the strap on your camera when it’s on the tripod, then you could get one of those quick release straps so you can take it off once you’ve got it securely fixed on the tripod.

I know that some people like that Black Rapid sling style strap. If it works for you, then that’s great. I just prefer the regular old-school strap. Always have. It’s a very simple design, but it’s extremely functional in the widest variety of settings. Either way, I highly recommend using the strap.

My Favorite Film Simulations on the Fujifilm X Series Cameras

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When designing the X Series, the Fujifilm engineers had the idea to incorporate the looks of some of their older films right into the cameras. This was a brilliant move; after all, with an 80+ year history surrounding film and color imaging, this played to their strengths.

Ask any photographer who has used actual Fuji Photo Film why they shot it, or ask an X Series shooter why they use Fuji, and their likely answer is because of the colors. In short, no one does color like Fuji, which I why I feel this is such an integral feature on the cameras.

I’d even go so far and say that the Fuji Film Simulations are the lifeblood of the X Series cameras. This wonderful collection of fifteen ultra-classic color and monochrome palettes give you some of the most iconic looks in the history of photography.

Developed over decades and culled to perfection for the X Series, these built-in color presets offer you a diverse and dynamic set of tones with which to craft your artistry.

(Click here to watch the video companion to this blog post.)

The idea is that as you gauge your scene, you make creativity decisions right there in the moment, based on how you want to show your subject, and then pick a film simulations that best matches those ideas.

For example, are you going fo bold and beautiful, subtle and subdued? Rich and powerful, careful and contemplative? Clean and crisp, garish and gritty? You’ve got it all right there at your fingertips, from the rich drama of VELVIA and the wonderful skin tones of ASTIA, to the soft, muted colors of ProNeg Low, and the classic journalistic tones of Classic Chrome, as well as a fantastic selection of black and whites modes!

Here’s a detailed rundown of my favorite film simulations on the X Series cameras, and what kinds of subjects I typically use them for. I strongly encourage you to play around with them. Get to know the film sims intimately. Commit them to memory and make them an integral part of your own shooting experience.

VELVIA

In 1991, Fuji Photo Film as they used to be called, unveiled an ISO 50 color reversal (slide) film that shook the world of photo imaging with its wonderfully rich color, highly saturated color palette and inky black shadows. Outdoor photographers loved it and seemingly overnight, VELVIA quickly became the favorite film of landscape, nature, travel and adventure shooters everywhere.

VELVIA has a very vivid look. It was my favorite slide film and it’s my favorite film simulation because it delivers colors that are larger than life. It’s not always accurate or nor is it always true to life, but for general outdoor photography, it delivers the intended emotion and confidence of your scenes with a bang.

In fact, when designing the original VELVIA color profile, the Fuji color engineers tweaked the color recipe in such a way that it makes images more “memorable”.

Funny thing about the human brain: We often remember things as being more “enhanced” than they really were in real life. That’s just how we work. In fact, if we were to look at a faithfully accurate photo of a memorable scene, we would think it’s “missing something.” VELVIA plays on this psychological aspect of human memory and helps us create imagery that has a strong impact in the memory of our viewers.

I LOVE VELVIA and I always have, even when I shot it back in my film days. Having bought my first roll of VELVIA back in 1993, I’ve been shooting those colors for half of my entire life. In that way, those VELVIA colors have been an integral part of my development as a photographer.

VELVIA works for just about anything on bright sunny days: Action, adventure, landscapes, travel, people… It’s not so great on cloudy days or for close portraits, especially with darker skin tones.

ASTIA

Based on Fuji’s professional ISO100 color reversal portrait and fashion film, ASTIA does great with skin tones and clothing, which makes it ideal for photographing people outside under natural light. That said, it looks great on any kind of subject, inside and out, because it has great color that doesn’t block up when the contrast of your scene increases.

For this reason, ASTIA is my preferred film sim on cloudy days when VELVIA is too contrasty. It’s one of my favorite film sims, and I find it incredibly useful for a variety of subject matter and lighting conditions.

CLASSIC CHROME

Although the Fuji people can’t officially call it as such, Classic Chrome was designed to emulate Kodachrome, the most classic of all film stocks. With the lowest saturation of any of the other film sims, Classic Chrome produces softer colors and gives a wonderful muted look to your images.

At first, Classic Chrome might seem a bit boring, especially when compared to VELVIA, but when you realize what it’s doing, you’ll find that it almost produces a very pleasing, almost monochromatic look, but in color.

The tonality of Classic Chrome is interesting, it’s relatively soft in the highlights and harder in the shadows. This makes it quite usable for shooting under overcast skies. Shadows become a bit more rich, but your brights don’t blow out so easily. You can use this to your advantage in a wide variety of situations.

When you want your story to be about the subject and not the colors, Classic Chrome is a great choice. Think photojournalism, environmental portraiture or street photography. It’s even great for certain landscapes, because when you take away bright color, you force your viewer to concentrate on shape and tone and imagine the colors that were present. In that sense, it’s like VELIVA in reverse.

PRO Neg. STD

The two PRO Neg sims are patterned after Fuji’s popular NS 160 print film, which was the go-to choice for wedding and portrait photographers

PRO Neg. HI has slightly more tonality than STD, which gives it a little more contrast. It’s ideal for outside portraits or street photography.

On the other hand, PRO Neg. STD has the lowest tonality of any of the film sims, and it produces images with minimal contrast and soft, muted colors, but with slightly enhanced skin tones. It’s designed to give the best results when photographing portraits inside under studio lighting and flash.

Where CLASSIC CHROME has muted colors, but retains hard tonality in the shadows, PRO Neg. STD pulls everything back evenly. You get those nice Fuji colors, but at a very low saturation level with much softer shadows.

I actually love shooting with this film sim and I use it quite often to give a much more lower contrast look to my imagery, especially when fighting shadows on bright days.

ACROS

ACROS is a black and white film simulation with an exceptional level of tonality and a very complex grain structure. It requires a higher degree of processing than regular Monochrome sims, so it’s only found on the newer X Series cameras (X-Pro2, X-T2/3, X-H1, X100F and X-T20/30.)

With a tonality curve that’s capable of holding detail in both bright whites and dark shadows, ACROS produces an exceptional level of depth and tonal gradation across the entire image.

It also produces a wonderful, characteristic level of grain that very closely mimics actual film grain. Just like you would see in a black and white print, ACROS has more grain in the darker areas and almost none in the highlights, and it increases in strength as you move up the ISO dial.

At ISO 3200, ACROS looks incredible, with superb tonality and gorgeous, film like grain. At ISO 12800, images still hold up with a surprising amount of detail, and the grain looks just like what you’d see on a print made from Kodak T-MAX 3200.

I absolutely love ACROS. You will too. If you have a newer Fuji, definitely shoot in ACROS mode and don’t be afraid to shoot it any ISO setting. I’ll often shoot ISO 3200 in broad daylight, just so I can get that awesome looking grain. Remember, photography is all about representation and a little bit, or a lot of grain never hurt anyone.

You Should Try Them All

Although these are my favorites, I use all of the film simulations in my photography, and you should too. Or at least experiment with them and see which ones you like. Each of them renders the colors and tones of your scene differently, and can impart a slightly (or drastically) different feel to you photographs.

Here’s a video companion to this lesson where I explain each of these film sims in a little more depth and show you a few more images examples. I cover all of the film sims in my bestselling Fuji eBook, X SERIES UNLIMITED.

To read about how to customize the film simulations for adding an even more stylized look in your photography, check out this post.

Photography Composition Tip – Keep the Edges Sacred

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When I look through the camera and arrange my subject matter in the viewfinder, I usually try to keep things away from the edges. In fact, one of the most ingrained compositional guidelines I live by in my photography is to keep the edges sacred.

I just think it gives the photo a cleaner, less cluttered look. It also reflects the notion that you, as a photographer, are making deliberate decisions about the arrangement of subject matter in your frame.

Look at the photo above. See that partial flower along the left side of the top edge? Looks a little sloppy, doesn’t it? It’s almost like I didn’t notice it was there there until later. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I should have noticed. It’s good photography technique to notice stuff like that.

Here’s another version. See the difference?

Of course, this second shot has a different issue. See those flowers near the top right corner? They’re also sitting right at the edge. Are they any less offensive than in the first example?

I think they work, and here’s the difference. We can consider them disappearing subject matter. They’re part of a repeating pattern of orange flowers that draw the eye in and out of the frame. They’re similar enough that we recognize them for what they are, instead of being a unique subject element that’s chopped off.

Also, since they’re so out of focus, they just fade nicely into the background. They add a bit of additional flavor before subtly leading our eye out of the frame.

However, I realize that to some viewers, even this example is visually bothersome. If this were your photo, you might have a strong compassion to remove them entirely from the frame. And that would be ok, because it’s your photo.

Let’s look at at another example.

This one is a little more obvious. In the first example, that frosted twig is sitting a little too close to the top of the frame. Pretty easy to spot right? It feels a bit crowded up there, and there’s no room for the subject to breathe.

That’s a prominent description I like to use when talking about this technique. You want your subject elements to have enough breathing room so that they don’t feel cramped at the edges.

Of course, if you’re dealing with a repeating pattern or if you’re focusing on the details of a scene, you can totally get away with busy edges, as long as you’re being deliberate about your composition, and as long as you’re not cutting anything unique or important off right at the edge.

In this case, it’s all considered environment. Nothing is being cut off, it just ends, or rather it just travels out of the frame in a natural way.

When we create our compositions, we strive to include a little bit of tension and visual discomfort in our frame, but there’s a difference between offering slight discomfort and making it so your views are bothered.

In the last example, I’ll give you three versions, only this time, I want you to tell me which one works best and which one doesn’t. Take a look and let me know which of these three scenes appeals to you the most, and which one bothers you the most.

As you’re playing around with the camera, and looking at subject matter, think about this guideline and see if it helps create more effective compositions. Be deliberate with your framing and remember to pay attention to every single element in your frame. Nothing should get by you.

If it does…and it occasionally will, it just means you need more practice seeing. We all do.

How to Use the PRE-SHOT ES Setting on the Fujifilm X-T3

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One of the coolest features found on the Fujifilm X-T3 is a setting called PRE-SHOT ES. Found in the SHOOTING SETTINGS Menu, this powerful setting is included specifically for photographing fast action and subjects that move very quickly. (EDIT: The new … Continue reading →

Exposure Basics for Shooting With Mirrorless Cameras

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I often get questions from readers and workshop students about how I exposure for my scenes. Which exposure mode do I use, how often do I bracket, and in what increments? Which metering pattern do I prefer, center weighted, spot or multi segment? … Continue reading →

10 Essential Autofocus Tips for Sports & Action Photography

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I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Shooting sports and action is really hard. It’s easily one of, if not THE most challenging genre of photography, simply because you have so little time to think about what you’re … Continue reading →

Why You Should Remember to Shoot Vertical Landscapes Too

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Do you always remember to turn the camera sideways when you’re out shooting? It can be an easy thing to forget. After all, in their natural state, cameras are built horizontally. Just like your TV, the microwave, the refrigerator and the … Continue reading →