Lowest shutter speed you can hand hold...

merciful said:
I'm confident with 1/4 sec. with a 35mm, 1/8 with a 50mm.
Click to expand...
Yep, same here. 1/4 sec. with 35mm, perhaps with a 50mm on a good, very rested day. That's with a rangefinder. With an SLR, about 1/20, 1/15, if I'm feeling very smug. I've even shot a few 1/4 sec. with 40-60mm

Many factors come in, though. Wind, how active you have been, hand-holdability of the gear, its weight, etc.

When in doubt, I just close my eyes, think really hard, then take the picture 😀 Save the cheerleader...
 
Well, I don't know about all this Zen and breathing stuff but I have a fascination for shooting with sloooow shutter speeds. Here's two mugshot snaps I took recently in a very dark NYC club with my IIIf and the superior Fed 50/3.5 lens using cheap Kodak 400 Gold film. Most exposures in the club that night were 5 seconds wide open. The thin negs and the quickie scans contribute to the grain-noise factor. Bottom line is if you practice you can get very usable and bizarre images of people that are not typical under normal illumination. For whatever reason people take on a totally different personality under low (dim) light. I have other examples but they're not appropriate for this forum. Oh, another thing is, if possible, take control of the subject and adamantly demand they freeze during the exposure. Mostly... they cooperate.

For me... it's all about having fun taking pictures of people I don't know.

lesny1.jpg


lesny2.jpg
 
56 years young, with a RF I am good to about 1/15. I get some good ones at 1/8 but I need a solid place to put my back. DSLR 45mm, I am good to about 1/30 with no support.
 
Depends..

Depends..

As with everything, it depends.. When I'm tired, 1/125 isn't even fast enough, but when I'm relaxed then suddenly the sky's the limit, and I get decent results at 1sec.. There is some difference between the cameras I have, but the biggest difference is still me..

Example: M4 with 50/2 Hexanon at 1 second.. Perhaps not critically sharp, but certainly acceptable when the amount of blur is compared to the grain size..
 

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Practice helps, cheating helps, clamp, mono pod, tripod...

Pillar and 1/2 case if you dont have a mono or clamp, the half case is for the abrasion from ferro concrete pillar. A contax IIIa will fit in a Kiev case, saves your nice Ita leather wear & contax chrome.

Elbows on coffee table.

Flip out stabaliser on contax II or Kneb set camera on bar counter, activate self timer at B, for hidden 1 sec or thereabouts. Blue tack (or kids modelling clay for tilt).

Sit on ground wear water proof trews. etc.

Some times a solid tripod wont do, e.g. in gale force wind.

Do you want the photo or not? You dont need band players who tap their feet or sway to the music.

Noel.
 
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