How long can you hand-hold your camera?

[Alan Clark]

Last night I decided to test the Steady Shot on my 90mm macro, with the A7Riii. This shot is not claimed to have any artistic merit!
I photographed my garden hand-held with only street lights and interior lighting for illumination. I set f2.8 and set ISO to automatic. The camera decided on 0.7 seconds and ISO 12,800. I focussed on the grasses in the centre of the picture, and was impressed by the lack of shake. The exposure is 64x the rule-of-thumb time of 1/90s sec.
I tried increasing the exposure to 2 secs, but each time the shake was excessive.
Noise is quite apparent but not unacceptable in some parts of the picture, but with a noise reduction tool this could be removed very effectively.

• Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro G OSS
• 90.0 mm
• ƒ/2.7999999523163
• 751619264/1073741824 sec
• ISO 12800

 

[garuda]

Hi Alan, I read the thread title and then the post text, and I'm bit confused. I can't exactly figure out what you are asking, so I'm fishing for more specificity. Are you asking how long we can hold our hands still until the camera begins to shake too much? Or are you testing the camera's or lens' ability to stabilize the sensor image?

When you increased the exposure to 2-secs and you claim the "shake" became excessive — do you mean the in-camera (or in-lens) sensor stabilization started shaking the image more (failing to stabilize)? Or do you mean your hands shake more on longer exposures? If it's the latter, then of course you must hold your hands more steady w longer exposures because the shutter is open longer and will register any cam movement onto the sensory that can't be compensated for by the stab-function. And the in-cam stab can handle only so much hand shake before the registered image moves.

So I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to test. And also not sure precisely what your question is. Once I understand your question, I'll help if I can.

 

[Alan Clark]

Garuda, perhaps I should not have posted as a question, I was just curious about how effective the stabilising was, so it was a question of the camera and lens and myself, not other members, but comments are welcome.

The in-camera stabiliser does not work with this lens, it was the lens that did all the stabilising.

 

[garuda]

Garuda, perhaps I should not have posted as a question, I was just curious about how effective the stabilising was....

Hey Alan, no worry. I understand. In fact, when I'm thinking about things privately, I'm now in the habit of keeping my fingers away from a keyboard so I don't inadvertently post regrettably.

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