I’ve noticed that recent photos I’ve shot have been less sharp than I usually shoot. Some were due to camera shake and others just were slightly out-of-focus. One of the downsides of shooting with nice lenses is that you can’t blame the equipment when the shots aren’t sharp!
I’ve also been re-reading Joe McNally’s excellent book on small strobe photography, Hot Shoe Diaries. In it, he mentions something that didn’t resonate with me the first time I read the book as it did this time. He describes how he holds his camera: to his left eye, with the camera body pressed into his shoulder for stability.
I’ve always instinctively held my camera to my right eye (I’m right-handed, if that matters), but I tried his method after reading the section and son-of-a-bitch–I might be left-eyed! I’ve always been lucky to have excellent eyesight, but just before my recent 40th birthday, I recognized that my eyesight–especially close-up, is waning. I’ve been inadvertently testing my vision through my recent acquisition of a manual focus lens. Not only does holding the camera to my left eye feel pretty natural, but my left eye may be just a bit stronger than my right–something I’m pretty sure wasn’t the case until recently. Additionally, the stable stance he recommends seems to have helped with the camera shake induced results.
McNally also describes “Da Grip” on his weblog, complete with video. Great tip!