Prevent blurry effects in your pictures. Even if you intend to introduce blur or distortion effects or grain in your picture, the start is a high quality photography. Basic tipps for a stable camera setup for miniatures photography.
Shake Your Hands
There’s two types of things which can disturb your shot. First is your naturally shaking hands during long exposure. No one can hold a camera perfectly still for two or more seconds (maybe the perfectly trained sniper can). Of course there’s cameras with shake reduction. And they will help you a lot to a certain degree.
But you can stabilize your camera during exposure with the help of anything solid. For example a book on a table. In case of your smartphone place a second book behind it to keep it upright.
The best stabilization is a tripod. There’s all sorts of tripods and for each type of camera there do exist tripods in all quality (and price) levels. Classic cameras (that is those only for taking pictures) normally are tripod-ready. Check on the bottom of your camera, there should be a screw hole which is of standard size. For smartphone there’s adapters as well.
Ideally your tripod has one or more spirit levels ideally with a bull’s eye. A ball camera mount is also helpful.
Shake Your Camera
Even with the camera fixed to a tripod it can happen that by pressing the shutter of your camera you shake the camera. Automatic release or remote control are minimizing this effect. For SLRs some photographers even lift the mirror up front to prevent any shaking triggered by this camera-internal action.
You don’t need to set the automatic release to 10s. Two seconds is absolutely enough. Remote controls are available wired and wireless. The advantage of the wired is that you don’t need extra batteries. The advantage of the wireless is that you can stand away from the camera several meters. This prevents the tripod from shaking while you walk around during exposure.
Summary
A stable camera setup for miniatures photography is essential for high quality photos. You can achieve that with both a tripod and a remote control.
