Would you like to know how to hold your camera more steady? Have you ever wondered why one of your digital photos came out blurry? Read on.

This picture is blurry due to the camera shaking during a 1 second exposure

What is Camera Shake?

Camera shake occurs when the camera is moving while the shutter is open. It often occurs in shots in darker places taken without a flash.

The best way to reduce camera shake is to use a tripod. The more stable and heavy the tripod, the better. But there are a few things that you can do if you don't carry a heavy tripod around or don't have one.

Shorten the Exposure

Your hands will shake while the shutter is open, but you can reduce the effect by leaving the shutter open for a shorter time.

1. Add light to the scene. This is not always possible or desirable, though.
2. Increase your ISO speed. This increases the sensitivity of your sensor to light, allowing the camera to close the shutter sooner
3. Shoot with a faster shutter speed. If your camera has a "Shutter Priority" mode, you could use that and set the fastest shutter speed available
4. Remove any filters, wide- or tele-converters which are all reducing the light getting into your camera and causing the camera to use a longer exposure
5. If your camera has interchangeable lenses, use a (more expensive) "faster" lens (a f/1.8 lens is faster than a f/2 lens is faster than a f/3.5 lens)

Hold the Camera Correctly

Most important is to hold the camera in a way that reduces movement.

1. If you have a viewfinder other than an LCD screen, brace the camera against your face. Your face moves less than your arms at full length.
2. Use both hands. The proper way to hold a camera is with your right hand on the grip and your left hand under the camera or underneath the lens if it's long enough.

Control Your Breathing

Cameras and rifles have a few things in common. You aim and shoot at things with both of them; A quick somewhat unprepared shot is called a snapshot; Similar techniques can be used in both cases to steady your shot. What I do is:

1. Point the camera at what I want to take a picture of, holding it as described above
2. Press the shutter button halfway to autofocus, etc.
   
3. Take a deep, slow breath
   
4. Exhale slowly
5. Take a second deep, slow breath
6. Exhale about halfway and hold
   
7. Very slowly add pressure to the shutter button until it finally depresses and the camera takes the picture
8. Start breating again
   

Makeshift Tripod

Even if you don't have a tripod, you can often find an object nearby which can help you steady the camera. You could set the camera down on a car roof, rock, or park table. You could hold it up firmly against the trunk of a tree, street light, or telephone pole. If you're sitting down, you could prop your elbows up using your knees. If none of these options are available, sometimes even leaning up against something can help steady yourself.

Reduce Vibrations

If you can take the picture without touching the camera, you'll have a much better chance of not causing any motion

1. If your camera can use a remote trigger, use that. You can't cause camera shake if you don't touch the camera.
   
2. If your camera has a self timer function (and you can set it down on something), use that. Any vibrations that you might have caused in the camera have hopefully settled down by the time the timer counts down to zero.

Zoom Out

If you don't absolutely need a particular composition, zooming out can help in 2 ways:

1. The blur from the same amount of shake will be smaller on the final image and less apparent. Think about how much more shaking is apparent through a pair of binoculars. Zooming out has the opposite effect.
   
2. Wider angles on zoom lenses often have larger relative apertures, which will let more light in, allowing your camera to shorten the exposure time.

Fancy Gyroscopic Lens

I don't have one, but there are digital SLR lenses (for example any Canon lens labeled "IS") which contain pieces of glass which correct for the movement of your camera when you take pictures without a tripod. They don't do magic, but I have read that they are very helpful.