theDongle

If you have the time and means, it is always best to shoot with a Tripod. The three legs cover almost all of the axis needed to gain stabilitiy and let your camera do what it does best which is to collect light on a single, small surface. Tripods however, are not always an option and in most cases not possible at all. There are options however to help you become solid as a rock.

Lean on Me
Find the most solid object around. Structures are best, even natural ones. Buildings, Rocks, Vehicles anything that is solid. Simply leaning against these objects provides a level of stability to compensate for your bodies need to reatain its balance while standing and holding something. Remember, your body is made up of muscles, tendons and joints that are constantly in motion to keep you upright. This becomes almost critical if you are at a party and alcohol is involved. Just look at some of the pictures on Facebook or MySpace and you get what I mean.

Get Down
I use my experience in the Marine Corps to explain this one. Every year we had to qualify on the shooting range in three positions: Standing, Sitting and Prone. With each step closer to the ground the accurracy of the shot improved. I’m not saying that you should lay on the ground in the prone position to get the most stable shot, but I think you get the idea. This is obviously something that you would employ when taking nature type shots. The more you can leverage solid earth to brace your body, the better off you are.

Put It Down
I have used this on a few occasions. I would just put my camera down on something solid and use my hands not for support in holding the camera up, but in keeping it upright on the solid object. For example when visiting the Colleseum in Rome, I used an old brick wall to support the camera while my hand was only used to press the shutter button.

One other thing to keep in mind here with shake is that it becomes worse with the less light you have around you. In bright daylight, shake is not as visible because your camera can open and close its “eye” or shutter fast enought so that any movement is limited. At night however, you will never get a clear shot simply by holding the camera. Sure there is a flash if your camera has one, but in depending on this shots can look very flat and not very artistic. The darker it is the longer your camera’s shutter has to stay open to collect the light. Using any of the above techniques will not solve the problem of low light and motion, but will definitely give you better odds of getting a shot that at least looks like its not in a time-warp.