Minimum hand held shutter speed calculation

[Chris Harvey]

I shoot with a Mamiya 645 super and was wondering how the 35mm SLR rule of thumb of 1/focal length of the lens for the minimum hand held shutter speed works with MF is it the same?

Thanks

Chris

[Christopher Walrath]

It would. Bigger camera, might double that just to be on the safe side. Unless you have not a worry in the world.

[RalphLambrecht]

I shoot with a Mamiya 645 super and was wondering how the 35mm SLR rule of thumb of 1/focal length of the lens for the minimum hand held shutter speed works with MF is it the same?

Thanks

Chris

We talked about this in a recent thread: It's not a 35mm rule, it's a MF rule. It's way too liberal for 35 mm!

[MattKing]

I had a flash of deja vu:

http://www.apug.org/forums/forum48/7...ule-thumb.html

It is a good question.

[MattKing]

Ralph:

Great minds think alike - on most things!

[RalphLambrecht]

Ralph:

Great minds think alike - on most things!

Matt

Full agreement would be boring!

[Chris Harvey]

Cheers folks thanks for your help

[2F/2F]

It is just a rule of thumb anyhow, so isn't universally accurate; only better than nothing for those who have not yet found out for themselves. I find hand holdable speeds to vary from camera to camera, and even from shot to shot with the same camera, depending on how it is being held. You need to try it yourself with each camera and see what you get.

I find that waist-level-viewing cameras give the best slow-shutter hand holdability. I find them better than eye-level-viewing cameras in this area because they are often cradled in the hands very solidly (and these hands are connected to arms which are also more solidly located against the body), and the camera is also often braced against your body as well.

[Ian Grant]

Looking back through pre WWII photo-books the minimum recommended hand held shutter speeds were the same regardless of format, with a standard lens. This is borne out in practice, it's no different using a 35mm camera hand held as as 5x4 Press camera, at speeds like a 1/25th(/30th), 1/50th(1/60th) etc, all increase in sharpness with shutter speed. A larger format doesn't make it easier, the lesser enlargement factor might mask it slightly but any slight wobble is amplified by the larger sized format so it evens out

It was the German 35mm camera systems that brought in the rule of thumb with regard to focal length & shutter speeds, the range-finder Leica's & Contax's, followed by the SLR Exacta's and Praktina's in the late 30's an it doesn't have it's roots in medium format at all, but can of course be applied there as well.

These 35mm cameras where the first mass market cameras that could take a wide variety of lenses and be hand-held. It was a few years before MF cameras began to catch up in terms of lens ranges etc, Hasselblad being the first.

The rule of thumb using a minimum shutter speed equal to focal length breaks down anyway as soon as you use wide angle lenses, you can't shoot hand held at a 1/15th easily with a 17mm WA. It's just a very loose quick and dirty guide for standard & more importantly telephoto lenses.


Ian

[RalphLambrecht]

... A larger format doesn't make it easier, the lesser enlargement factor might mask it slightly but any slight wobble is amplified by the larger sized format so it evens out ...

The larger the format, the larger the CoC, the less camera shake has an effect. Since we are talking about a focal-length depending rule-of-thumb, the larger format does not amplify camera shake. It's easier to hand-hold a 50mm MF lens than the same focal length on a 35mm camera.