One of the main settings that needs to be tended to in photography is shutter speed. When I first started shooting I didn’t really pay much attention to it because I thought it was a boring setting. I didn’t think that how fast the shutter was open effected anything outside of the lighting. Because of this I always left my camera on auto for the shutter, but I didn’t realize what I was missing out on.
The am learning more everyday about photography and how to have more control over how the pictures come out and turns out a big part of that is the shutter speed.
Shutter speed lets you control how motion is expressed in the photo. Whether that is through blur or through freezing movement is up to you.
STOP. DON’T MOVE.
A fast shutter speed is perfect for creating a frozen in time effect. And I know it sounds weird and it seems like every photo would freeze time, but with a fat shutter it is different.
In the photo above for example you can see that the water is moving but there isn’t any motion blur. I used a 1/4000 shutter speed which is the highest my camera will go so I could get clear shot, because the shutter was at the fastest speed there want a lot of time for light to get to the sensor so I had to add my own light.
I also used a 1/4000 shutter speed for this shot of a puddle that was full of rings from the rain.
Blurry Face.
On the other side of the spectrum if you use a long shutter speed you can add moment through blurs in the photos.
For the picture above I used a 1/8 shutter speed so I could get the moment in the outside branches. Because it is such a slow shutter I set up my camera on a tripod to minimize blur, to add even more stability you can use a remote to click the shutter without touching the camera, but I don’t currently have a remote for my camera.
This picture is easily my favorite. This was my first really long exposure shot because I finally got a tripod. The shutter speed was 30″ meaning the shutter was open for 30 seconds. The room was pitch black so I didn’t know how any of the shots would come out, but that was part of the fun. I set up the camera then hoped over the where it was aimed and would move around flipping a lighter on and off to catch different moments of the movements all in the same shot.
There is so much that can be done with the shutter besides just controlling the lighting and I am exited to keep exploring that!
Ysabelle Kae Photography 