Lesson 2.6: Know your camera: Shutter speed

Shutter is the curtain that protects the sensor/film from direct light, unless the shutter button is pressed for taking photo. Once the shutter button is pressed it lifts up and  closes down within a period of time collecting an amount of light to produce a photo. That time, while the shutter opens, the sensor/film is bare till the closing is called shutter speed. This shutter speed is responsible for freezing the moment or blurring motion. 

Shutter Speed: Shutter speed, also known as “exposure time”, stands for the length of time a camera shutter is open to expose light into the camera sensor. If the shutter speed is fast, it can help to freeze action completely. If the shutter speed is slow, it can create an effect called “motion blur”, where moving objects appear blurred along the direction of the motion. This effect is used quite a bit in advertisements of cars and motorbikes, where a sense of speed and motion is communicated to the viewer by intentionally blurring the moving wheels.

Slow shutter speeds are also used to photograph lightnings or other objects at night or in dim environments with a tripod. Landscape photographers intentionally use slow shutter speeds to create a sense of motion on rivers and waterfalls, while keeping everything else in focus.

Motion can also be frozen to an extent with a camera flash, even at low shutter speeds. Take a look at this:

It was getting dark and even after increasing the sensor sensitivity to ISO 100, the camera still needed at least 1/250th of a second to properly expose this bird. If I had shot the bird at that speed, the bird would have turned out to be blurry, since it moved faster than 1/250th of a second. So I increased the shutter speed and took the shot at 1/320th of a second. 

All of the above is achieved by simply controlling the shutter speed. In summary, high shutter speeds freeze action, while low shutter speeds create an effect of motion.

Measurement: Shutter speeds are typically measured in fractions of a second, when they are under a second. For example 1/4 means a quarter of a second, while 1/250 means one two-hundred-and-fiftieth of a second or four milliseconds. Most modern DSLRs can handle shutter speeds of up to 1/4000th of a second, while some can handle much higher speeds of 1/8000th of a second and faster. The longest shutter speed on most DSLRs is typically 30 seconds (without using external remote triggers).

Fast, Slow and Long shutter speeds: Fast shutter speed is typically whatever it takes to freeze action. For me, it is typically above 1/500th of a second for general photography and above 1/1000th of a second for bird photography.

Slow shutter speed is considered to be the slowest shutter speed that you can handle without introducing camera shake. Some of the newer Nikon and Canon lenses have special “vibration reduction (VR)/ Image stability (IS)” technologies within the lens that can handle shutter speeds of up to 1/10th of a second (depending on photographer’s technique), hand-held! Also Sony DSLR bodies are equipped with built in "Steady Shot (SS)" system that helps photographer take photos at reasonably slower shutter speeds without any blur.

How about long shutter speed? Long shutter speeds are typically above 1 second, when you have to use a tripod to get acceptably sharp images (for low-light/night photography or to capture movement).

Shutter speed on Camera: Do you know how to find out what your camera shutter speed is set to? It is typically very easy to find the shutter speed. On Nikon DSLRs that have a top panel, the shutter speed is typically located on the top left corner:

If you look through the viewfinder, it should also be the number on the bottom left side of the screen. On most DSLRs, you will not see the shutter speed as a fraction of a second – it will typically be a regular number. When the shutter speed is slower than or equals to one second, you will see something like 1″ or 5″ (the ” sign indicates a full second).

Continue to lesson 2.7