Mirror Flop and Shutter Release Shake Test

The Theory
There are some great resources on the web that talk about camera shake, the source of it (mirror flop and shutter release) and how to reduce it.  Bob Atkins has some great info at http://www.photo.net/photo/nature/mlu.  One thing for sure is that every combination of camera, lens, and tripod is different so you will have to do the test for yourself, luckily it's very easy. 

The following test is based on the fact that the only shake that matters is the shake that occurs when the shutter is open.  Here are several of the methods of reducing shake that I have read about:

• Hanging a heavy weight from the tripod.
• Gently pressing your eyebrow against the viewfinder or your cheek against the camera back.
• Resting your fore-arm on the camera/lens.
• Resting a bean-bag on the camera/lens (I used a 2 lb. bean-bag). Another experiment would be to find out the minimum weight needed.

The Test:
Place tin foil over a bright flashlight and use a needle to put tiny holes in it (the finest holes you can possibly make). Point it at the camera then test away.

Equipment used in this test:
Nikon N2000, manual focus, no mirror lock-up.
Electronic shutter release
Nikon 300 f4.5 ED AI-S, set to f/5.6 (tripod mount on the lens).
Bogen 3205Gs (3001s) tripod, everything locked down tight.
Bogen 3437 magnesium pan/tilt head, everything locked down tight.
Kodak Supra 100 film
Camera was about 30 feet from target.

The Results:
I checked the results at various shutter speeds and found that I start to see problems at 1/60 second and slower, no problems were seen at 1/125 second and above.

The results reported below were virtually identical for shutter speeds of 1/60 sec and slower (i.e. 1/60, 1/30, 1/4 , 1/2 sec.).

• Hanging a weight from the tripod. This may help against wind vibration but did NOTHING for mirror flop/shutter release shake.  Even with a very heavy 30 lb. lead brick (don't ask) firmly clamped where the tripod head mates to the tripod.  This tells me the shake was limited to the camera and tripod head and that the weight and rigidity of the tripod itself made no difference!
• Resting your fore-arm on the camera/lens. This helped but not by much, probably because the arm-to-camera contact was not solid and rigid.
• Gently pressing your eyebrow against the viewfinder. Very good results even at slow shutter speeds. 
• Resting a bean-bag on the camera (I used a 2 lb. bean-bag). This produced near perfect results every time.

All of the following images are for a shutter speed of 1/30 second:

No attempt to reduce shake.  Major problems here. 
(Negative #25) 

Hand gently resting on camera body.  This method never worked very well. 
(Negative #26)

 Eyebrow pressed against camera.  Worked consistently well and was a close second to the bean-bag. (Negative #27)

2 lb. bean-bag resting on camera body. This was the best  in all cases.
(Negative #28)

The Conclusion:
The determining factor in reducing mirror flop and shutter release vibrations is to increase rigidity of the camera/lens assembly. Do this by firmly pressing something against the camera or by adding weight (mass) to it.  Optimize this technique by applying the mass as far away from the tripod mount (which acts as the pivot point) as practical.  Adding mass to the tripod itself has no effect.

LINKS

• An experiment on the effects of a 1% image resize in Photoshop. Also optimum image sizing for the Fuji frontier.
• Check out my long distance Camera Remote Control.
• Hiking Tripod - Selecting a compact tripod for hiking.
• THE WILDLIFE PAGE - animals shots taken in our yard.

• Email comments to Jack.