The Shutter Speed controls the amount of light being let into or through the lens to get to the senor or film, the shutter speed can be altered via two settings on a camera, fully manual mode and via the shutter priority mode.
In basic terms a picture is constructed using 3 key components, the shutter speed, the aperture and the ISO. These 3 combine to make the image what it is and can have dramatic effects on a image when a user understands it functions, the shutter speed as we now know controls how much light comes onto the senor during a specific duration however the aperture or F stop can also control the contrast of an image as by using F3.5 or lower the camera allows as much light as possible into the camera body within the time period that the shutter speed is set to, having a low F stop means that the maximum amount of light can be let in, if a image is taken in dark conditions and the user of the camera wants to manually select a high or fast shutter speed for example 1/125 (125th of a second) the F stop will be lowered to around 3.5 or lower, the problem with this is that F3.5 allows a limited amount of depth of field meaning that only a section of a subject may be well in focus whilst the rest appears out of focus, a way to adapt this would be to alter the ISO settings, in dark conditions the ISO can be altered to allow more light onto the sensor and therefore allows the subject to be lit better, this MAY allow the user to have a higher F stop depending on conditions for example if it is lit well enough to shoot F8 and get a well exposed image it would benefit the photographer as they would be able to get a better depth of field, there are however drawbacks to shooting with high ISO’s and we shall look at this in the ISO explanation below.
The shutter speed when manually set can be used in two key and visually obvious way, using a slow shutter speed blur’s any action, whilst using a fast shutter speed enables the picture to freeze the subject and its action, using the technique of a slow shutter speed is used when photographing landscapes or mainly still subjects, using a slow shutter speed for example 20 or 30 seconds means that the F stop can be pushed to its max for example f22 or f29 enabling the camera to produce a photo with everything in focus, this technique can also be used for another effect for example to blur a subject, if a photograph was to be taken of a sports can where there is frequent movement a long shutter speed may be out of favour by many however if the speed is correct the image produced can have a great effect.
Below are 3 examples of long shutter speeds to demonstrate different uses of the technique the first shows a perfectly in focus landscape where a long shutter speed combined with a high aperture has allowed for a great depth of field, the second image shows a usage of a long shutter speed in a sports event and this image showcases a difficult but effective usage of a longer shutter speed, and the third image shows the effect of a slow shutter speed on a moving subject to create a mysterious effect that isn’t seen by the human eye.
Below are 2 further examples of shutter speeds however this time these examples show the use of catching a moment by freezing a subject using a fast shutter speed for example 1/400 (400th of one second) fast shutter speeds are used mainly in sports events where the action needs to be captured as a striker in football celebrates or is about to shoot which could possibly result in a goal.
examples of my slow / fast shutter speeds
fast
fast
Slow
Slow
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