Who can do longer?

This blog has been around for a little over a year and for the anniversary I'm making a wish come true - and I hope you have fun and take part: this article opens a competition! And the question is: who can do longer?

Actually, this competition is about the correct camera position. I think this is one of the most important topics and can also save real money. Lenses with Nikon's VR or Canon's IS usually cost significantly more than similar optics without this technical support - and often with the same optical calculation, i.e. imaging performance.

So I playfully ask the question of which camera position is better and combine this with an easy task: take a photo with a 50mm lens while standing, without leaning on anything, without additional supports, without a tripod, without VR/IS, etc – and take this photo with the longest exposure time you can hand-held! I would of course be interested to know how you held the camera to achieve this long exposure time without blurring. Maybe you can take a picture of your camera position.

It would be great if you could write a post about this in your blog and link to this post here - the trackback should then appear here automatically, otherwise please point it out here with a comment. If you don't have your own blog, you can perhaps show the picture on one of the numerous photo platforms and mention it in a comment here. Of course, it is important that the sharpness can also be assessed using a 100% section.

The campaign runs until next Thursday, June 3, 2010 - after which I will summarize the results and tips for camera positioning here again.

I'll get started today and show you a picture from yesterday evening - handheld, photographed with a 50mm lens.

The Reeperbahn yesterday evening - certainly not an earth-shattering picture, but the long exposure time is clearly visible. I managed 1/2 second exposure time yesterday evening - I couldn't do more because then I got too cold.

On the left you can see the 100% excerpt - from the original JPG, unedited. I don't think I made it particularly easy for myself, because the writing is quite far away and with the distance, small wobbles are of course more noticeable than if the writing had been very close.

I think the image still passes as sharp - and for presentation here on the web with a smaller pixel width (my images on my website always have 950 pixels when they are in landscape format) the sharpness is definitely enough.

So – and now it’s your turn. Show your long exposure, which you can take handheld while standing.

And in a week I'll of course reveal how I capture my camera - regardless of whether I need the long exposure time or not. Because stability when taking photos is always important. But first I would like to read your tips because I am curious and like to learn.

Next week we'll hopefully have a wealth of good advice on how to keep cameras steady.