Monopod Rule

[sean_buerger]

Folks,

was wandering about a cooking recipe for use with Monopod.

For hand held shots many people go by the 35mm equivalent focal length to determine a safe shutter speed. e. g. 50mm x 1.5 = 75mm -> 1/75s

Does any of you have recommendations or experience on what is a 'safe' shutter speed, when the camera is mounted on a monopod, dependant on focal length.

I just bought a cheap monopod for trying and shot a 200mm lens with 1/50sec and it still looks good down to 400% magnification.

Perhaps you could share a few thoughts
Thanks. Sean.

[d2creative]

Why would your focal length have anything to do with your shutter speed? 1/100th of a second is 1/100th of a second.

[dc2]

Originally Posted by d2creative

Why would your focal length have anything to do with your shutter speed? 1/100th of a second is 1/100th of a second.

I think Sean is talking about the higher the magnification the faster the shutter needs to be to compensate camera shake.
Sean I just picked up a monopod yesterday so this interests me too.

[cyclohexane]

For handheld, I go by roughly one to two stops under the focal length, i.e. 50mm = ~1/15 second, and so on. *Depending on how easy the lens is to support (weight, length, IS/VR, etc.), I sometimes increase or decrease the amount I'm pushing my luck.

In general, I'd say that the monopod gives me at least one extra stop of stability, so that'd be three stops from the focal length rule (At these speeds, however, the pictures would be useless to me, as I mostly shoot active subjects, so I need higher shutter speeds anyways. *LOL).* You could probably add a little if you were using IS/VR lenses too.

[sean_buerger]

Apologies,

I should have written more clearly. Hmm, it was a bit late in the night :-[

Originally I was referring to motion blur by camera shake vs shutter speed and field of view (equivalent 35mm focal length).

The monopod is a workaround for optical image stabilization for me, as I'm not sure whether I want to invest money in anti shake technology. It's kind a hard getting an opportunity to evaluate image stabilization without buying it. A monopod on the other hand is a very small investment.

Cheerio. Sean.

[dc2]

Originally Posted by sean_buerger

Apologies,

I should have written more clearly. Hmm, it was a bit late in the night :-[

Originally I was referring to motion blur by camera shake vs shutter speed and field of view (equivalent 35mm focal length).

The monopod is a workaround for optical image stabilization for me, as I'm not sure whether I want to invest money in anti shake technology. It's kind a hard getting an opportunity to evaluate image stabilization without buying it. A monopod on the other hand is a very small investment.

Cheerio. Sean.

Funny enough I posted the question should I leave image stabilizer switched on or off when using a monopod ? Most agreed to leave this switched on for monopod and off for tripod.

[sean_buerger]

Okie,

I went out with the LEICA after work and tested the monopod under extremely low light in Taman Jurong in Singapore's West :

All shots were done using a shutter delay of 2sec. This should keep the camera pretty free of extra movement induced by pressing the trigger. The camera has electronic shutter and no mirror to slap and is quite light (compared to dSLR). Tests with my SIGMA SD10 will follow later.

- I noted a difference between shots done when on my feet, compared to being on my knees.

- At 90mm focal length and standing, I get usable results at 1/8 sec, unusable ones at 1/4 sec.
- At 50mm focal length and standing, I get usable results at 1/5 sec (some improvement 1/8 sec).
- At 90mm focal length and kneeling (is there such a word?), I get usable results down to 1/4sec.

If I had anti shake, I would on it additionally to the monopod to further 'squeeze'. I expect my SLR to be slightly worse, due to mechanical shutter, mirror slap and higher resolution.

Surely above mentioned findings will have to be verified further (increased sample size) and do not represent safe values at all. But to get a safe rule of thumb, one has to find the threshold, I guess.

The pictures included were taken standing. They are a 1/4 crop.

Cheers. Sean.

[Blacklynx]

i would say on for a monopod and off for a tripod, although dont like monopods, tripod or i.s for me. I would invest in 3rd gen i.s lens and you wont need to worry at all.

[sean_buerger]

Time to share some experiences!

This weekend I took my SIGMA SD10 with a 135mm (ca. 200mm equivalent) and a 200mm (ca. 300mm equivalent) out, to assess the usefulness of my cheapo mono pod.

As expected the usable shutter speeds are not as dramatic as with my digital compact. One reason might be the higher resolution of my dSLR. Another reason surely is the mirror slap, which can be felt, when taking the pictures. Somebody spank the SIGMA design engineers!

- Handheld I would expect my 135mm to be good to shutter speeds down to 1/200s. I get good results with the monopod with this lens to about 1/60s in landscape orientation. This particular lens is an old Nikkor AI and rather heavy. I might be wobbling more with it, because of the weight.

-For the 200mm the handheld expectation would be roughly 1/300s. With the monopod 1/100s was still good in landscape orientation. Remark: Surprisingly I saw some chromatic issues in very high contrast areas.

- The monopod works less well in portrait orientation. This might be because it's harder to hold the camera steady, when upright.

The pictures below are the full picture, 1/4 crop and 1/8 crop. Sharp!

Regards. Sean.

[sean_buerger]

I upscaled the images for your convenience!

Cheers. Sean.

[dc2]

Thanks for sharing this I picked up a new monopod and next saturday coming will be the first chance I get to test it out properly in the field.