Tip of the Day: Maximizing Sharpness in Photographs

We all strive for tack-sharp photographs, unfortunately more often than not our images are not as sharp as we had hoped. There are few basic improvements which we all can make to our workflow to improve sharpness in our photographs. First, if you are not already using a tripod, you should start. Hand-held photographs, even when shot at a very small fraction of a second (fast shutter speed) will exhibit some softness, which will be greatly exaggerated when shooting with a telephoto lens. The longer the lens, the more problematic camera shake will be. If tripod is not an option, shoot with a shutter speed greater than 1 / lens' focal length (i.e. for a 50mm lens DO NOT use shutter speed slower than 1/50 sec). Avoid shooting in the wind, whether with tripod or without. When long exposures are a must, stabilize your tripod, use a remote release, do not touch the camera, and make sure there is no zoom creep, if a telephoto zoom is used.