One of the most misunderstood techniques for the beginning nature photographer are those necessary for making tack sharp images when shooting with a long lens. Lots have been made in recent years of the virtues of one technique over another. There are even technology wars between camera manufacturers that tout the benefits of their equipment to lessen the issues related to camera shake so you can make tack sharp pictures. Let's get a couple of things straight right from the beginning. There are many, many, many contributing factors towards ensuring tack sharp images. I'll try to be as generic as possible to avoid any potential issues one may have with the specifics of their particular brand of camera. I'll discuss techniques that should be useful regardless of what type of long lens you use.

Let's get right to the chase. Long lens techniques are necessary simply because the field of view of a long lens is so narrow that the smallest movement of the lens causes the subjects in view of the camera to move around, thus the results of camera shake--blury subjects. What's going on here? Whether through camera vibration or simply moving the camera around, subject movement has to be eliminated to give you the greatest possibility for tack sharp images. Notice, I'm not even getting into the whole possibility/problem related to the subject moving itself. There are four basic contributors to tack sharp images:

1. Focus - This is the first step. If you subject isn't in focus there's nothing you can do with technique to make your images sharp. You have to have sharp focus to have sharp subjects. For this article, let's assume your camera can accurately focus--which is honestly a big "if".
2. Subject movement - If you're shooting wildlife they have minds of their own. They move when they want, they do what they want, they aren't necessarily cooperative. How do you keep the subject sharp if he's moving around. The short description of the solution is shutter speed. Fast shutter speeds will stop the motion of moving subjects. Clearly the darker it is out there the harder it is to keep the shutter speed up. This means if it's dark out and the subject is moving around a lot, it's impossible to make the subject sharp. Okay there are artistic techniques with panning to keep portions of the subject sharp but for the purposes of this discussion, let's assume fast moving subjects can't be sharp without fast shutter speeds. In the end, selecting good shutter speeds to keep the subject sharp is a whole additional article that exceeds the scope of this article. Let's assume for today your shutter speed selection is sufficient to keep the subject sharp and can eliminate issues with its movement.
3. Camera movement - Here's the point of this article. Assuming everything else is good to go, you still aren't there yet to ensure your subject is tack sharp. You have to deal with camera movement. As noted before, dealing with camera movement is a mainly misunderstood process which I hope to clarify with this article. The first thing you should know is there are two causes of camera movement. The first is movement caused by you the photographer. The second cause is movement caused by the camera.
   1. Movement caused by you is very easy to see. Try to hand hold your long lens for any length of time. Assess how steady you can make the image when looking through the camera. Can you make it rock steady? Can you eliminate any subtle movement your subject is making? No!? Then you're in the same camp as every photographer in the world. But there's hope. There are techniques I'll teach you to steady your hand and to help minimize the shakes. Notice I'm not talking about eliminating the shakes. That's because if you have your hand on the camera, no matter how steady you think you are, the camera is moving oh so slightly. It's a fact of being a human. Unless your stone cold dead, you're always moving and that gets transmitted to the camera. Sometimes you have lots of movement, sometimes you have little. But know, there's always some kind of movement. I'll teach you techniques on how to deal with that.
   2. Movement caused by the camera is very hard to see. Being that the camera is a mechanical apparatus at the end of a long metal tube--the lens--enchasing a bunch of glass, there is movement related to this configuration. Imagine this. Pretend you have a mechanical clock securely attached to the end of a long rigid metal tube. What do you think will happen to the tub when the mechanical alarm goes off? It will vibrate. Conceptually this is what happens when you pull the trigger on your camera. The camera will shake when all the parts start moving thus causing the lens to vibrate oh so slightly. Mostly this isn't a factor but for very long lens photography, this can be a huge factor towards making tack sharp images.

There you have it, the four challenges for making tack sharp images with long lenses. Since we're talking about long lens technique we'll focus on dealing with the last two issues--the two about camera movement--and when necessary relate some of the discussion towards the other two.

Camera Movement Caused by You

This can be a vexing and frustrating problem that with a few techniques can hopefully be minimized. The first and foremost cause of this kind of movement is due to you the photographer not being stable. I'm talking you're not in a comfortable steady stance. Try this... Stand at attention like you're in the army. How long can you maintain your stance and be rock steady? At first you may be able to keep steady. Since being at attention is inherently unnatural and uncomfortable, you'll begin to vary. Your muscles will begin to strain and thus the beginning of being unsteady. Now try bending over at the waist at a 90 deg angle--this is an extreme situation. How long can you keep steady? Probably not at all. If at all, it'll last only moments before you begin to be unsteady. This is a very uncomfortable stance and being steady is impossible. What's the common thread through all this? It's comfort. If you're holding your camera and am uncomfortable you will be unsteady thus causing camera shake and making your subject less than tack sharp.