P67 Users, I love this camera and have been using a tripod for almost everything so far. I am now ready to venture into hand holding my P67. Any comments on shutter speeds and film speed may save me a few rolls of film. Thanks. Mike Walker------>walkerm@pacbell.net

-- mike walker (walkerm@pacbell.net), February 22, 1998

Answers

1/250 is least to try hand held. Better 1/500 or 1/1000. 1/125 is pushing it even if you lock up the mirror for a few seconds and try to hold camera still before releasing the shutter.

-- Gene Crumpler (crumpler.gene@epa.gov), May 08, 1998.

Its really just a matter of technique. Cradle the camera in your left hand with your elbows close to your body. Relax. Squeeze the shutter. While I use a tripod whenever possible I have found that the P67 can be hand held at rather slow shutter speeds. I've gotten good results at 1/30 with the 105mm. I recently used it to shoot a bike race and got good results panning with it as well. With the 200mm at 1/60 I have paned shots of Olympic racer Chistian Vande Velde in which you can clearly see reflections on a drop of sweat on his chin.
The point is that the camera really can perform quite well hand held. I think that people just get nervous when the mirror make that awful sound.

-- Mark Meyer (Mameyer@xsite.net), June 04, 1998.

I have gotten very sharp images at 1/125 and good ones at 1/60 with the 105mm. I bring my elbows as close in to my body as possible to support the camera. That being said, I use a tripod whenever possible, and the mirror lock-up.

-- Roy L. Jacobs (rljacobs@pipeline.com), June 11, 2000.

It is possible that people hear horror stories about the "shake" of the p67, try handheld on some shots right after buying the camera (before they REALLY have a feel for it?), get less than outstanding results, and give up on handholding anything under 1/250th. Assuming a proper target, it should be possible to use the 55mm-150mm lenses, handheld, at 1/60th. This camera was tested by JCII many years ago, and the 65 year old Japanese technicians did it -they claimed- at 1/30th! What I noticed in my own tests -after this was shown to me by another Pentax user- was that I am MUCH, MUCH more stabil with the waist-level finder, but this might be due to 10 years as a Rolleicord user. I can easily get another ss lower with this finder. Using the grip for anything other than carrying the camera lessens my work in a noticable way. As someone else pointed out, you just need to find a way to cradle the camera, and relax. Depending on what you are photographing, you can use mirror lock-up handheld once you get the hang of it.

-- Carl Tower (cjtowerman@yahoo.com), September 05, 2001.