Minimum hand held shutter speeds using vibration mitigation technology

Mission Creek Kokanee spawning channel in Kelowna

One of the great challenges of photographers has always been getting a shutter speed that is fast enough to prevent motion blur from camera movement.  That value is not consistent as there are two main variables at hand.  The focal length of the lens plays the greatest role and the second is the stability of the photographer holding the camera.

There is a rule of thumb that has worked for most of us.  We call it the one over the focal length rule.  This pertains to full-frame (35 mm) cameras without any form of vibration mitigation technology turned on.  The minimum hand-held shutter speed of a  200 mm telephoto lens is 1/200th of a second according to this guideline.  For a 50 mm lens, it would be 1/50th of a second, and an ultra-wide angle lens of 16 mm would be about 1/15th of a second.

If you were very stable (think a doctor's hands), you could reduce that value by a stop, and if you were somewhat shaky you should increase it by the same amount.  These shutter speeds don't take into account any subject movement or panning technique and the camera is being hand-held without the benefit of a tripod, monopod, or stationary object to rest on.

Of course, technology has played a large role in reducing these minimum hand-held values.  Vibration mitigation tech has allowed us to reduce those shutter speed values by anywhere from 3 to 5 (or more!) stops.  I used my Nikon Z7ii camera that has built-in VR with a 24-70 mm lens to take the above photo.  The focal length at the time was 45 mm.  The camera is full-frame (FX), so no crop-factor (DX) is needed.

Without VR, my minimum hand-held shutter speed would be 1/45th of a second.  However, the above photo was taken at 0.5 (1/2) seconds, which is about 4-1/2 stops lower than this.  The reason I wanted a shutter speed this low was to produce some blur from the moving water, which you can see in the image.

So, could I have gone lower?  I did the same photo 6 stops slower than the recommended shutter speed and got some noticeable blur in the rocks and leaves.  You can see the two images (cropped) below for comparison.

Left:  4-1/2 stops below minimum hand-held shutter speed
Right:  6 stops below minimum hand-held shutter speed

If you look closely at the left and right halves of the image, you can see that there is some loss of definition of the stationary materials.  There is more blur of the water, which is desirable, but the reduction in clarity of the fixed components produces a poor image overall.  

I have used a tripod and a variable neutral density filter to take photos of waterfalls with shutter speeds of 5 seconds or more.  The results are amazing, but I had neither device with me at the time.  However, I now know that I can reduce my hand-held shutter speed by up to 4 stops without there being a problem.  That is, of course, assuming that my subject isn't moving.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com