How to Hold & Support Your Camera - Tutorial (2025)

Before I crack on its important to ask the following question ‘does it really matter how you hold your camera?’

For the most part yes, but as long as you are getting the shot you want and enjoying what you are doing then it is all good. What I am going to try and do here is explain, based on my own experience, why holding and supporting a camera in certain ways will be able to improve your overall experience and hopefully make taking photos easier and more fun.

So, why is it important to know how to hold a camera properly? Stability, comfort when shooting (mainly on your lower back and your hands) and to make manipulating the camera controls easier in any given situation. Cameras are built so that the right hand controls operations on the right hand side of the camera, such as the shutter mechanism and control dials. The left hand controls the lens rings and any controls that exist on the left hand side of the camera.

The main methods available that are used to support and hold a camera include:

• Handheld
• Tripod
• Monopod
• Clamps
• Object assisted

This will be the main way you will hold your camera in most shooting situations. Hand holding a camera allows you to move around, interact with whatever it is you are photographing and in general be more immediately responsive to the shooting situation.

From personal experience there are preferred ways to hold your camera and these aim to increase its stability and to take stress off of your body. The lens is usually heavier than the camera body and this can place strain on your fingers, wrist, elbows and lower back if you do not support the lens. The aim is to support the weight of the lens with one hand, and use your other hand in a relaxed fashion to control the dials and shutter release.

This is Rob. He is a particularly talented chap with a camera and you can find his work at his website robbiekhan.co.uk.

For me the above is my preferred way to hand hold a camera. Left hand open and relaxed with the lens smack bang in your palm with your left elbow close into your body in line with your shoulder. This supports the weight of the camera in your palm, allows you to manipulate the lens rings easily and by bringing your elbow towards your body it takes the strain off your shoulders and lower back. Now, because your left arm is doing all the right things you should find that your right hand is more relaxed gripping the camera. You can modify aperture and shutter controls, you can focus lock without it looking like your sat on the toilet. Something else you will find with this approach is that it will reduce the amount of muscular shake caused by excessive tension in your right hand and shoulders. This will allow your to shoot for longer periods and will increase stability in low light situations, should you not have all the latest VR lenses and high ISO performance camera bodies and you are choosing to shoot flash free.

It is also worth noting here that standing with your feet shoulder width apart and your right foot slightly back will also help with overall comfort and stability. With your feet positioned in this way it allows you to keep the camera inside your overall stance and adjust your body backwards. This is explained a little more below.

Now a couple of incorrect ways to hold your camera.

I’ve seen both of these being used with fairly weighty looking DSLRs. The left one I call ‘the smartphone grip’ and the right one is just hilarious. The problem with both of these holding techniques is that they place strain across you hands and shoulders, and they leave the heaviest part of the camera system unsupported.

So if you are using a manual focus or zoom lens (top end lenses tend to be heavier)either of the above grips mean you will have move your left to manipulate the lens.

For the smartphone style grip this will be from the body to the lens and back again which takes time, potentially leading to a missed shot, and causes the entire system to be held in one hand.The image on the right shows Rob gripping the top of the lens. Try this method at home and ask yourself if your right hand feels relaxed (it will not) now imagine having that tension in your hand for a up to 10 hours hours.

If you are shooting a wedding then you will either be using one body with a prime lens and another with a zoom. So if you are working the crowd after the ceremony then you will find that you will be switching zoombetween close up shots of people to wider context type shots.

Supporting the lens on your left hands palm also puts you in greater control when panning, titling and moving. If you are using a small prime lens, support the camera by placing the underside of it on the palm of your left hand. This will take the weight of the camera system and allow you to manipulate the focus, or hold the lens at the front if you are on auto-focus.

And the last thing to notice is the position of Rob’s arm. They are wide and away from his body reducing his ability to control the camera comfortably. Shooting like this over long periods of time will cause tension and strain in your shoulders, neck and back. Couple that weight with carry a camera bag can lead to injury over the longer term.

The above image shows two correct techniques on the left, and what I consider to be two incorrect techniques on the right.

The very left technique is good for photos where you need to get a lower position. I try and create a tripod effect between my left foot, right knee and right foot. I sit my butt on my right heel and rest my left elbow on my left knee which creates a stable posture to work from.

The next standing posture is the one you should ideally use when moving about. Notice that the feet are about shoulder width apart and the right foot is about half a pace behind the left, turned outward slightly. This creates a nice stable bridge in the lower body that allows you to move backwards and forwards between both feet if needed. It allows your abdomen to remain relaxed for panning and allows the camera to remain inside of whole standing position.

Relaxed postures start at the feet and move up the body.

The two postures on the right are both unstable. If you stand with your feet in line your abdomen is likely to stiffen up a bit to compensate for where the camera is. If you need to move forwards and backwards on your feet, you will either have to lean or step forward, causing shake in the camera and increasing the chance of a shaky shot. Sometimes a shaky shot is cool, most of the time they end up in the trash.

If you are bent over, as the right stance shows, you will be putting a lot of strain in the middle of your body, especially your lower and mid back. This will cause your muscles to stiffen and will affect how you take your photo. This sort of method will cause problems if you adopt it through repeated long shoots.

Rhythmic breathing is also a very important to help keep you relaxed. In many mediation-based disciplines, breathing out relaxes the body, and you can apply this to taking photographs. Always try to take a photo when you are breathing out as this is when you will be most relaxed.

BUT! despite all this advice on remaining in control and relaxed sometimes you just won’t be able to get into a comfortable position to take your photograph. The occasion might arise when you have to go beyond the point of normality to get a shot. During my time as a photographer I have balanced on top of walls, leant over the edge of tall buildings and wedged myself into the corner of various climbing gyms (sometimes on a rope) to get the shots that I needed.

Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

Tripods have been around for a long time and have improved with advancements in technology and materials. Modern mid to top end tripods are usually reasonably light, strong and stable. Entry level tripods tend to made cheaply and have fewer placement options. My own Tripod of choice is a3 Legged Thingand it is now over ten years old and still going strong.

So, what would you use a tripod for?

Tripods can be used in the following situations:

• Where you need to have the shutter open for a long period of time, otherwise known as a long exposure photo (night shots, landscapes, interiors).
• If you are being excessively precise about your composition (interiors, architecture).
• If you are using it to support a heavy lens or nodal system (sports or virtual images).
• If you are shooting for compositing work and you need to replicate camera position across multiple shoots.
• If you are using a tilt shift to shoot a panorama.
• Shooting an HDR image.
• Studio portraiture.
• As a walking stick.

Along with the tripod you also have the tripod head, which takes many different shapes and forms. The two more popular heads include three-axis head’s and the ball head. Again, you get what you pay for with these. Three axis heads tend to be more precise, but they are bigger and carry hold a lot of weight. Ball heads are smaller and easy to carry, but tend to sag during tightening and cannot hold as much weight as a three axis head. But, both have their place in a tool kit.

Whatever it is you go for do your research and find out what others think about the products you are looking at. Budget is a need for many of us, but there is simply no point in buying cheap equipment if it will only hinder what you are trying to achieve and there are plenty of good mid range options to get you started.

This method is fairly straightforward: use whatever is in your vicinity to support your camera. Whilst we all love our gear and think we will have everything we need with us at all times, sometimes you will be caught short and will have to forge a solution from whatever is near-by. It’s not pro, but as long as it does the job, nothing else really matters.

You can use a concrete post, the floor, a lens cap, a chair or anything else that will allow you to keep your camera still should the situation arise. Door frames and walls are also other viable options as well when you need to support the camera by wedging it at the join between the lens and camera bottom or if you need to increase your own stability.

There are of course other methods you can use to support a camera and these includegorilla pods, camera dollies, time lapse devices and sliders, drones for aerial photography and very, very tall posts used for virtual aerial panorama and real estate work. All of these items are very job specific and you will not need to own or use them to begin with. The equipment you buy will be dependent on the task at hand – where ever your photography takes you.

So, hopefully you now have a solid understanding of how to hold your camera and the different methods available to support it when you are not shooting handheld. When you are starting out, it’s worth buying a tripod and learning the basics of where and when you should use it. It will also open up areas of photography that would otherwise be impractical without a tripod.

A note on how much equipment to carry…

I recently had a conversation with another photographer who had to go into Hospital to have an operation on his back. This was to correct damage caused by carrying lots of heavy gear in a backpack. This is a worse case scenario but can very easily happen if you keep carrying heavy bags for prolonged periods of time. You need to think of your body long term and the damage excess strain will cause. A little tip is this. If you find picking up your bag difficult because of its weight then it is too heavy. Odds on you are probably doing what I did in the picture above, and packing for every eventuality. Forward plan what you are going to shoot and if you need to pack lots of gear then consider using two bags: one main gear bag and one bag for carrying another lens and flash gun, along with all of your batteries and memory cards….and tablets….and laptops….