I have shot many wedding ceremonies without the flash turned on during flash-prohibited portions using ASA 100 color film at 1/4th second or longer without any signs of motion blur. We're talking by candle-light. Yes there is a tchnique to it, but the technique doesn't work with a smaller lighter camera. I guess this is because the technique relies on the help of gravity to help anchor the camera during the exposure.
Here's the way the solid hold works--and works especially well with a waist-level finder on a Mamiya C-Series camera and a side-mount handle or flash (runed off and discharged priot to shooting.) If you have a wall or something tall and solid to lean yur back slightly aganist to keep your body from swaying either laterally or front-to-back--it helps a lot, but is not absoluely necessary. It is necessary to pland your feet shoulder-width apart. In martial arts we call this the horse stance--except your strong-side food is slightly behind the other foot.
In denfensive-style handgun competition or proficiency practice, we call it the Weaver stance. With your feet so spaced, it is easy to keep from swaying--fro a few seconds or longer. Next, you raise the camera eye-level finder to a viewing height where you don''t have to stoop forward much,if at all, to look intothe magnifyer and focus. You focus and allow your face, forhead, nose, lip, or whatever you can manage, to brace the camera in place at the top of the finder.
You tuck your arms solidly against your sides and plant them firmly there all the way to the elbows. You take a couple of breaths and let the second one out to a natural feeling point--about a third of the way for me--and hold your breath. You are holding the camera naturally in your hands with a finger on the shutter or trip-button on a side-mount bracket. You push the button straight back lightly until it trips.
Keep holding your breath until the exposure is more than ever. That's it. The camera's weight will help keep it solidly in place. Try it! What else will the Mamiya C series cameras do. Maybe I'll start by discussing what's wrong with them.
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