Mirror Lockup

• If you use a high quality tripod, mirror lockup makes no difference at all.

• On unsteady or cheap tripods and heads, mirror lockup made a profound difference but the difference was ONLY noticeable between 1/80th down to 3″ shutter speeds. Same if you are trying to hand hold 1/80th, 1/60, 1/30th.

• The shutter speed most prone to vibration problems was 1/40th on the cameras I tested.  

• All other shutter speeds showed no difference in sharpness with or without mirror lockup.  At fast shutter speeds, mirror lockup makes no real difference because there simply isn’t much time for the vibration to impact the photo.  At longer shutter speeds such as those used for night photography, the vibration only occurs during a tiny fraction of the overall exposure time, so it isn’t noticed.

•  It is important to remember that using mirror lockup certainly will not hurt the sharpness of your pictures, but I find that being overly burdened with too many camera settings negatively impacts my ability to make a great photo.

• If you don’t yet have a professional tripod and ballhead then MLU is one setting you should pay attention to when using shutter speeds between 1/80 and 3 seconds.

Read the whole article here: Mirror Lockup Is a Conspiracy

About Jim Harmer. Jim Harmer is the founder of Improve Photography, host of the popular Improve Photography Podcast, author, and complete photography geek.