Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/10/06
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I was a dedicated target shooter back in my youth. I mostly shot international style .22 caliber rifle competitions, and some .177 international style air rifle. I believe there are some important similarities between target shooting and handheld photography, and therefore some of the techniques can be brought across. I searched the LUG archives (on keywords "target shooting" and "handheld") and found a few threads dealing with the issues, but not a comprehensive list of target shooting techniques which may be applicable to photography. So, for what it is worth, here is a list of target shooting techniques of interest. I apply them myself, but have not submitted them to scientific scrutiny. I learned these techniques from a manual published by the United States Army Marksmanship Training Unit. Unfortunately I don't know of a current reference which is commercially available. 1) The accuracy of a target rifle is always tested using total support (a benchrest), and under controlled conditions (usually indoors with no wind, and not during a seismic disturbance). This is true even if the rifle will only be used in the standing position, like a competition air rifle. The reason is that there is tremendous variation in the ability of different shooters to handhold a rifle and keep it steady. A handheld test confounds the effects of the rifle accuracy with the ability of the shooter. Lessons for photography: If you want to test a lens, put the camera on a good tripod. Don't confuse your ability to handhold with the lens's ability to render detail! There is probably tremendous variation in the ability of different photographers to get sharp photographs handheld without support at slow shutter speeds. 2) With a small amount of training, most amateur shooters can approach benchrest accuracy in the shooting positions where some support is allowed (prone and kneeling positions, where you can use a sling). The very best shooters get close to benchrest accuracy in the standing position! Therefore the accuracy built into the best rifles is not wasted, but using the accuracy in the standing position requires years of dedicated training. The lesson for photography: high lens resolution is not wasted on small format photography. Use a support whenever you can. (If a tripod is not available, rest the camera on a bench, put your elbows on a fence or table. Even leaning against a post will help.) Commit yourself to lots of practice if you want to hold the camera steadily without a support. 3) If you yank on the trigger, you will spoil the aim of the rifle at the instant the shot is fired. You must squeeze the trigger so the shot is released without any muscular disturbance. Beginners are taught to squeeze slowly, so that they don't know when the shot will be fired. This keeps them from anticipating the shot and flinching. More advanced shooters learn to squeeze quickly, so as to time the shot between heartbeats. Similar techniques should apply directly to handheld photography. It also indicates that you need a shutter which releases smoothly and predictably, without binding. A soft release may help. (I have two fairly recent M6's, and the shutter release binds on both of them. What a pain.) 4) To hold yourself steady, you need a degree of muscle tension which is a little above relaxed, but not so rigid as to create muscle tremors. Some shooters describe this level as "gently firm". Slight muscle tension seems to allow the body's balancing mechanism to operate more quickly. Hold your breath, but only after releasing enough air to release the tension in you diaphragm. This muscular state should apply directly to photography. 5) Stay focussed but calm. You must control the natural tendency to become excited during competition. Excitement raises the heart rate, tenses the muscles, and increases the frequency of involuntary muscle motions. Forget about how well you want to do, and how good or bad the last shot was: focus only on body and trigger control for the shot you are working on. This state of calm partial detachment (sort of pragmatic Zen) is difficult to achieve, but it should increase the odds of getting sharp handheld photos. Also in photography you need to focus awareness on the "here and now" in order to identify interesting situations and compositions. 6) Practice by "dry firing" without ammunition in the rifle. This allows you to see whether or not you are moving the rifle off target when you squeeze the trigger (the recoil of a rifle makes this hard to see if you shoot with live ammunition, sort of like SLR blackout at the time of the shot.) It also allows you to practice body and mind control in a situation with less anxiety than competition. In photography, a range-finder camera is the perfect camera to dry fire to practice hand-holding techniques. Just keep looking through the rangefinder as the shutter is released and see if the camera moves! Also, you can use dry firing to improve your ability to compose quickly with various lens focal lengths. I try to use all these techniques, and have had some good success with handheld night photography. I hope that these ideas may help someone else. Mark Davison