Ever since reading my first photography book, there’s been one rule for sharper photos, and that’s to keep everything stationary. When hand-holding the camera, the traditional wisdom for shake-free shots was to use the reciprocal of the focal length. For a 500mm lens that means 1/500 sec, or for a camera with a crop sensor work with effective focal length – as 500mm becomes 800mm then use 1/800 sec.
But with high-resolution digital sensors and larger viewing screens means that sharpness or lack of it is much more readily seen. A 24-inch monitor with 1920 pixels across is commonplace and if you zoom in to 100% on a 24MP image it’s like looking at a 1.5 metre print. It should be no surprise that you see more faults looking at digital images at full-size on a monitor.
