How NOT to Hold a Camera!

When Stan came out yesterday, he had a request.  He had seen someone at a solar eclipse event holding a camera out at arm's length, and the camera had a 70-200mm lens on it!  That lens is fairly heavy! He couldn't believe that someone would use their camera and lens in that way.  Instead of holding the camera up to his eye and looking in the viewfinder where you can see everything in great detail, the photographer was viewing and composing by looking at the tiny screen on the back of the camera!  The screen is only 1.5 inches by 2.24 inches.  Imagine how small that looks from two feet away - that's how long our arms are.  That screen on the back is meant to be used by looking at it up close.  Perhaps the photographer had forgotten his reading glasses!  So Stan wanted to have me pose, showing the wrong way and the right way to hold a camera while shooting and composing.  I was to be the model.

One other thing about the incorrect method is that when you use a lens of 200mm focal length, it is really hard to hold the camera and lens steady.  And it certainly will not be steady held this way!

 So you have probably guessed that this is the correct way to hold this camera and lens.  What may not be obvious is that my elbows are jammed into my torso, making a kind of tripod.  The back of the camera is pressed against my forehead, and the arms are against me, and that steadies the camera and lens quite a bit.  I learned one other thing from this shoot, by the way.  I have a lot of gray hair!  :-)  

All Photographs are by Stan Honda, a guy who knows how to hold HIS camera!