Two seconds trick, stretching the limit

Most modern camera's and lenses nowadays are equipped with stabilizers like the one in the Canon Powershot G9. This stabilizer is quite powerful but as all stabilizers it has it limits. The chance of getting a sharp picture at 0,3 sec and a focal length of 35mm is very limited, even with IS. Looking at the graphs at Dpreview i estimate the chance of a perfect sharp image about 1 out of 10.
Last summer i started to use a new technique to get sharper pictures at low light situations without going into the high iso ranges (not the strongest performance of a Powershot G9... )
For photographing stationary objects one may use the 2 seconds self timer to obtain sharper pictures, by doing this you avoid the extra shake induced by pushing the release button.

As an example i enclosed this picture. It was shot last summer in France at the crypt of the "Abbaye de Montmajour" built in the 10th till 13th century a few miles Arles.




and a crop at 100% (600x600 pixels)



Details:

Canon Powershot G9, handheld
shot in RAW, iso 100, f2.8, 0,3 sec, 7.4mm (35mm equiv.)
Processed in RAW Image Task, sharpness:5, adaptive noise control:5
TIFF file with minor Levels adjustment and a little tweaking of color balance in CS3, no further sharpening.

Hope this is helpful to all of our visitors/members, give it a try!

Best regards,


Rob

(www.geckophoto.zenfolio.com)

I never used this usefuf trick !
I am also sure that some mime training must help a lot! Perhaps we must watch out for a manual of this art. 'Mime for Dummies"
Herman

A short course in being a "living statue" will also be helpful .

I do hope by using these suggestions our pictures are getting more sharp than ever.

Best regards,


Rob

(www.geckophoto.zenfolio.com)

Nicely done. I will have to try this trick out. I generally use my walking stick to give me a bit more stability when I have it with me. I shot this using that trick....but also cranked up the ISO as can be seen in the sky.

Hi Rob and Schwert.
Nice shots and a very good tip, thanks.
This picture is made exactly as mentioned, except the camera was resting on a rock.
EOS 450D
Tv 4sec
Av 3.5
ISO 800
18mm
2sec self timer

Hi Pius,

I just saw this shot today.
Wonderful shot! Is this a JPG straight out of the camera?
The 450D an the 18-55 3.5/5.6 IS amazes me time after time!
Iso 800, F3.5, so wide open, at 18mm this lens is performing very well! Distortion is also very limited, great to see.

Thanks for sharing!


Rob

Great tip.
There is also in the menu a custom timer setting which allows you to set any time in seconds and up to 10 shots can be fired.
I would try set the custom timer to 1second and 2 shots one will always be sharper than the other.

Great tip.....will definately use it in future