What the heck is shutter speed?
A short explanation would be that shutter speed is the amount of time the camera exposes film, or on a digital camera, the image sensor to any given scene you are shooting photos of. These times are most often small fractions of a second such as; 1/1000th of a second, or 1/500th, or 1/250th, etc..
You can imagine your own eye popping open for just a split second to see what it is you need to see and then closing it tightly again.
Shutter speed is my second most used “photographic alteration”. What I mean by this, is that I deliberately change the shutter speed sometimes to achieve different types of results. Check out this illustration below to see how different shutter speeds can give far different feels to same photo opportunity.
Depending on the subject matter, you might want to set your shutter speed to something high to freeze action, or you could set it low to help create “motion” in the photograph.
Allison, Ava, and I were riding the train at the Cincinnati Zoo a couple of days ago. This train is rather slow. It might top out around 5mph. Here are two different shutter speed examples from that train:
This first image is shot at 1/50th of a second. You can see a slight bit of blur to it, but it’s mostly “frozen” even though we were careening down the tracks at speeds upwards of 5mph!!
This second image has the shutter speed slowed down to 1/4th of a second as we wind around the bend. There is nothing in this photograph that is actually “in focus”. But focus wasn’t the goal for this image, motion was. I couldn’t keep this image in focus at a quarter of a second long shutter speed because I was hand-holding the camera (without tripod), the train was moving (and bumpy), etc.. But you know what? It looks pretty cool and it gives you the feeling of motion.
Here is an image that I shot indoors. It was a long shutter speed of 1/3 of a second, but I had set my camera on a bench. This allowed the non-moving items in the photograph to stay still, while some faster moving things, such as certain fish, got blurry.
Pushing the shutter speed to 2.5 seconds really intensifies this effect.
Higher shutter speeds can freeze action. This shot is at 1/2000th of a second.
1/4000 of a second:
Sometimes, a really fast shutter speed isn’t the best thing to show action. This shot was taken at 1/80th of a second and it was just slow enough to really accentuate the movement.
General guidelines regarding shutter speed
- Fast shutter speeds freeze action.
- Slow shutter speeds create motion.
Freezing action is not always good, and creating motion is not always good. This is certainly going to be a trial-and-error area of photography. Finding that good balance of movement within your photograph will be the key.
Changing shutter speeds on your camera will be similar to the way you change apertures.
On a point-and-shoot, you can put the camera into a sports or action mode and it will give you a faster shutter speed. Slower shutter speeds are fairly hard to achieve with a camera like this.
You will really start to see the limits of your point-and-shoot camera when it comes to adjusting the shutter speeds. If you’re looking to get some really good action shots of sports or even just keeping up with the kids outside, a digital SLR camera is really the way to go. We’ll talk about what the heck a digital SLR even is in future posts.
As for now, feel free to post questions (or answer questions) relating to shutter speed or anything else you might be corn-fused about. Now get out there and practice it!!
I’ll leave you with a shot I took when I was 18 years old on the Roaring Fork trail in Tennesee. It was a 15 second long exposure, tripod in the stream early that morning. Water becomes silk.
Ryan, these are really great tutorials!
Thanks a bunch you are helping MANY.
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Thanks for these tutorials, they are helping me with my old camera that I never got the hang of…
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man…you don’t just preach… you REACH! once again, i understood and left learning something in awe! thanks so much! God bless…
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You have NO idea how much this helps!! Thanks for taking the time to explain.
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I dreamed about F-stops and aperture last night.
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You have a wonderful way of demystifying the complex. Thank you for your generosity. I look forward to the rest of the series, and will never tire of looking at that enchanting child.
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I subscribed to your blog through The Pioneer Woman, mostly for the cooking, but these tutorials have been great. I like taking pictures, but photographers can be snobby about this type of stuff so I have never tried to learn about it before. You put everything very clearly.
And like others have said your daughter is so beautiful, it’s fun to look at the great pictures you take of her!
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I’m loving these tutorials. I took my camera outside today and tried A mode. I think I finally understand it now. I’ll have to try S mode next. We’re heading to the beach next week, so I’d like to try some slow shutter speeds with the water to see if I can get that silky look.
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I’m going to print off your tutorials and keep them in my camera bag (LOL). I’m trying shutter speed tonight. Should be fun!
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That’s a cool photo. These things have always interested me & seemed too technical for me to really get a grip on it, but your explanations are making sense. Thanks!
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I have to say – I just love this series! I’ve been taking pictures since I was about 12, and my mom is an amazing photographer (she taught me and a friend how to develop B&W 35mm in the basement one summer), but I’ve always struggled to really understand some of these basics. You do a great job explaining, and the picture examples are *really* helpful for me. Evidently, I’m more of a visual learner than I thought…who knew?! Thanks!!
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Another great explanation! It’s pretty cool you are taking the time to do this for people! I look forward to each and every post!
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I am learning so much! Between you and Ree, I’m certain to start really improving on my pics- and I think I already do pretty well.
I love that pic of Ava in the swing… wonderful!!
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Your tutorials are FANTASTIC! I’ve been reading your blog for awhile now (after following you from PW’s) but this is my first comment since I simply cannot NOT say thank you!
I’ve tried other online lessons and read through other stuff but reading your past two posts has helped me to actually understand! The visual examples are so helpful.
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Hi, a quick question? When you allow the shutter to stay open for so long, how do you prevent the photo from being over-exposed? Thanks!
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I agree with Laura – how do you control over-exposure with slower shutter speeds?
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I’m gonna try some of these on my MIL’s camera tonight.
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Way awesome job! I am a visual learner so the descriptions and pics together make my brain sing and my smile happy!
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Thanks Ryan for another great tut!
I’ve been wanting to get a P&S that allows aperture priority & shutter priority, but was a little confused on exactly what they do & how they work together. This has helped tremendously. My saving for a new camera will be well worth it!
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Is it sad that I just figured out that I do in fact have a DSLR? Yeah.
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This is going to sound really lame but how do you know what ss to use? I am often baffled at how to decide to try what ss to use. I understand the concept but put into application is where I get lost. Is there a method to it or more a trial and error? I would love to learn to freeze action shots during my kids games.
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Ryan, THANK YOU so much for these lessons! I have been wanting to learn more for so long but was always overwhelmed by the terminology. Thanks for helping this beginner!
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That last shot is beautiful!! That’s one thing I love about digital photography – the ability to share the exceptional pictures over the computer. I think having images lit instead of on paper enhances them. And they look just as brilliant as they did the day you took them, years ago.
Anyway, thanks for the tutorials – I got vertigo looking at that train picture!
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Thanks again for the lesson. I love looking at your photos. They always have such a great texture. Love your composition also.
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Just an FYI, this really helps, so I came back to review again. Applied a few to my adventure yesterday. Except it’s really hard to switch fast with bright sunshine into treed shade. And the bird flew away before I could get him into real focus, though it’s amazing what came out with the rolling sprinklers.
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Question – I can get a photo to look great on the screen, but when I go to print it (I even have a supposedly good “photo” printer) the colors and saturation do not look the same at all! How do I get prints that look closer to what I am seeing on the monitor?
thanks so much
Connie
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While vacationing in Colorado, I started to play with shutter speed and aperture on my point-and-shoot camera. I got some nice photos, but ran into some issues with over-exposure (I guess) and low light. How should the two work together? And is this just a limitation with my camera?
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This is something I am especially struggling with on my new DSLR. I understand the concept of ISO but it is not giving me the right results. Too often my stuff is over or underexposed. I use a tripod and even a remote for longer exposures because my hands often shake and ruin handheld photos, but they often still come out blurry, especially when I shoot waterfalls. It’s very frustrating because I feel that I got better results with my crappy Kodak point-and-shoot, and I find myself wondering why the hell I spent $500 on a camera that is supposed to be better. if you have any idea what I am doing wrong, please let me know!
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Oops, I meant shutter speed instead of ISO in that last post. Durrrrr.
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