Hi, Do you know what’s the similarities btw Sniper and Photographer? Well, they use the same technique, that is! I got some interesting tips on how get a sharp pictures from your camera, using the same technique by the military sniper, in order to hit their target 3000m away! read this:

From: Nature Photography, Insider Secrets from the World’s Top Digital Photography Professionals, by CHRIS WESTON

CAMERA HANDLING

The most important aspects of camera handling are keeping the camera steady and in the right position to capture the image. While this might sound obvious, the techniques are easier to describe than to achieve.

Hand-Holding a Camera

Many people prefer to hand-hold a camera, finding tripods cumbersome, monopods restrictive, and beanbags often impractical. I won’t condone laziness as an excuse for not bothering with a tripod, but for those occasions when, hand-holding is the only practical option there are some useful habits to develop to help ensure that you get the best results. As I find myself often in a position when hand-holding the camera is necessary,

I once sought an expert in the field for advice—not a fellow photographer but a retired Special Forces sniper. He explained to me the mechanics of the body and how a sniper will train to hold a rifle perfectly steady prior to discharge. Our bodies are constantly in motion, although we don’t often realize it. Our lungs are inflating and deflating with every breath, blood is rushing through our veins, and our hearts are perpetually beating. All these factors combine to make the human body a very unstable support. The first phase in rectifying this situation is to bring the center of gravity to its lowest possible point, by lying down or kneeling rather than standing.

Next is to create a tripod from your body parts, for example, using the arms and legs to form a pyramid structure to serve as the principal support. Once the body is at its most stable, controlled breathing will minimize camera movement, the key being to fire the shutter at the bottom of the breathing cycle—breathe in, breath all the way out, and, before taking another breath, fire. If you want to get really serious about it, military snipers are trained to count their heartbeats and will fire the rifle between beats!