Everything I needed to know about shooting I learned in the Army

Shake is the bane of all shooters.  Doesn't matter if you are shooting 300mm or 5.56mm.  If you shake, you will miss.  Before I joined the Army I had never shot anything that didn't have film in it.  I was afraid that was going to mean I would be a horrible rifleman.  On the first day at the range, the Drill Sergeants asked who had never shot before.  I reluctantly raised my hand, more afraid of the punishment for lying than the scorn for being less manly.  To my surprise the next words out of the Drill Sergeants mouth was that we non-shooters would be the ones to shoot expert (I missed by 1 shot, shot expert every time after that).  Why?  Because we had no bad habits to unlearn while the kids who knew how to shoot would not listen and fail to qualify.  They got it almost completely right.  Only 2 of the non-shooters failed to qualify the first time (they were just hard headed!) and the rest of the 25 "bolos" (not a good thing!) were all kids who had been shooting for 3 year or more.  Time to unlearn some bad habits.

BRM = BPT

The Army calls it Basic Rifle Marksmanship.  It is a proven method for teaching a serious business.  It is literally life or death.  We can translate that method into BPT - Basic Photographic Technique.  Before we ever put a single round in our rifles, we spent hours on dime and washer drills.  We would put a dime on the muzzle of our rifle and go through the entire shooting sequence.  The goal was to keep the dime/washer on the end.  Try it on your biggest lens with the dime on the lens hood.  Its hard!  We had a sequence beaten (they could still do that back then) into us - Breathe, Relax, Aim, Squeeze.  Take a breath, relax your body letting the breath out, aim as you get to the bottom of your breath, hold your breath momentarily, squeeze the trigger.  Here is a graphic representation of the sequence:

All of this applies to shooting with a long lens or in low light.  Take note of the length of the line for squeeze.  That is to scale.  One of the worst habits shooters, film or rifle, have is pulling the trigger/stabbing the shutter.  For a camera, make sure you have a good grip.  It should be firm but not white knuckle.  Put pad of your finger on the shutter button, not the tip. This will force you to squeeze down, not stab.  Think about and feel the ring around the shutter button.  If you can't feel it, you are using the tip instead of the pad.  When you want to shoot, squeeze down instead of pushing or stabbing.  Don't worry about releasing!!!!  The camera doesnt care how long you squeeze.  You want to hold it for a second.  If you are thinking about releasing, you will stab down so you can let it up immediately.

Burst shooting

I learned to shoot on an M16A1 that had a full auto mode.  One of the first things we were told was to never spray and pray.  If you run out of ammo, you die.  Instead we were taught to shoot controlled 3 round bursts.  Later the M16A2 got rid of the full auto completely and replaced it with an "automatic" burst mode.  Of course all of us oldsters decried the change as an accommodation for lazy shooters.  The skill to shoot a full auto in bursts was one of those dividing lines between good and bad shooters and we liked it.  The Army just wanted live soldiers and told us to STFU.  On your camera, learn to do the same thing.  Most of us shooting on a budget have cameras that can only shoot so many shots before needing a break to dump to the card.  And if you are shooting RAW with anything less than a $5000 monster you have even fewer shots before you need to give it a rest.  For me on the K200D, 3-5 shots are about right.  If I burst shoot 3-5 with a short (1-2 breaths) break, I can shoot for 30 seconds or more before I clog up the buffer.  Here is a graphic:

This shows an every breath shooting zone which is really important when the target is trying to kill you but it works for action subjects like cars or runners too.

By shooting like this, you can eliminate almost all shake.  If you hold your breath too long, you will induce shake as your body gets starved of oxygen and naturally increases your heart rate and breathing.  For me, on a three picture burst I have a very predictable sequence of "perfect" shots - 1/3 or 2.  If I squeeze a little too hard, I get 1 and 3 with the middle being blurry because at the bottom of my squeeze I moved the camera.  If squeezed too light - which is just like a stab - I get the second shot because I was light, didn't get response, stabbed a little to activate the shutter, got steady and then let up jerking the camera again.  On good days I get lots of 1/3 and I have a great control picture to figure which of the steady ones I like best.

Lots of camera reviews praise large buffer/high ISO cameras and complain about low buffer/low ISO cameras.  I dont have the $2000+ laying around for a Nikon D700so its ISO magic doesn't do anything for me.  Like the angry old Army guys, I think large buffers are for lazy photographers.  More than that, I think they teach bad habits and cause more bad pictures than they produce.  Controlled shooting will beat spray and pray every time.  How many times have you missed a shot because you filled the buffer?  Internalize these techniques and you will not miss those shots.  By learning the basics of being a steady shooter, you can get more great pictures in less light and with less chaff and more wheat.  This saves you time in Photoshop and time is money.  And by getting steady, you can push that ISO down, aperture up and still get the shot, just like the D700 guys.

Great pictures don't care what you shoot with.  If someone else is paying the bill, go for the best equipment possible.  But if its your dime, learn a little and save a lot.  Let the trust fund babies buy the expensive stuff (and drive down prices!) and watch them still get crappy pictures while you smile and  thank the Army for not only protecting your right to take pictures, but making those pictures better.