Shutter Speed Cheat Sheet.
Hello!
Welcome to this-week’s newsletter photo of the week and lesson, Inspired by a Photo from Douglas Otto. Doug’s photo made me really think about shutter speed and how the correct usage of it can just take a picture to the next level. As you look at Doug’s picture you might notice the little touch of having the frothy flowing water actually creates a sense of movement within his still image. In case you haven’t done this before or are not quite sure what the optimal shutter speed is for a given object we have included a list in this weeks newsletter. Thank you for your inspiring picture Doug,
Photo of the week by Douglas Otto
In this picture the frothy look that the water has, that almost fools your eyes into thinking it’s moving, is an example of the effects of proper shutter speed usage.
Because shutter speed is such an important topic there are three levels this can be taken at. Beginners might want to read from: What is Shutter Speed, Intermediates might start from: How to Use Shutter Speed, and of course the advanced users might only want the: List of Shutter Speed Uses. And now our Shutter Speed Cheat Sheet:
If you are a beginner you might not know exactly what a shutter is, let alone why or how to adjust its speed. A shutter allows light to pass through the iris of the camera for a limited amount of time so that it can make contact with the sensor in modern digital cameras or the photosensitive film in older ones.
HOW TO USE A SHUTTER SPEED?
The faster the shutter speed is the less time light has to hit the sensor. This means that less time is actually recorded in the photograph. For fast moving pictures a faster shutter speed will leave less blur, but sometimes a blur is wanted such as in the featured picture this week. The water in Doug’s picture is seen trickling down the creek with a lengthened shutter speed. This camera shutter speed blurs the water giving it that slight frothy look, and the slight illusion of movement.
Longer shutter speeds are used to create blur or paint with light. Shorter shutter speeds are used for fast moving photography such as sports photography, and sometimes nature photography. It’s also true that the Shutter speeds can be dependent on the focal length of the lens for hand held photography. It’s said that the focal length in milliliters times 1/100 of a second should give you a good shutter speed for using that particular focal length. For example a 50 mm lens being hand held should have a focal length that stays open no longer than 1/50 of a second. A 500-millimeter focal length lens shouldn’t have a shutter speed more than 1/500th of a second if it’s being hand held. This will help prevent camera blur.
A LIST OF SHUTTER SPEED USES
Keep in mind that these rules may conflict with the rule I just gave you. It may be slightly easier to control the camera blur when panning of you may want to use a tripod or monopod to steady your camera and even then it might take some practice.
1/4000th of a second: This shutter speed is good for freezing a fast moving object in the moment. It’s good for splashes, minor explosions fast projectiles. Anything that is moving FAST.
1/2000th of a second: This is a great speed for getting pictures of flying birds, especially fast moving ones.
1/1000th of a second: this is good for moving vehicles at high speeds. Now keep in mind that this is good for freezing the vehicle, which will not show the speed.
1/500th of a second: This speed is good for sports pictures. Anything that involves running jumping or riding will be able to be shot with this speed.
1/250th of a second: This is good for shooting moving objects that are going rather slow. People who are walking would be a good example.
1/125th of a second: This speed is also good for fast moving vehicles however there is an entirely different dynamic here. You should practice panning to get a blurry background but a clear subject to show speed.
1/60th of a second: this is good for panning for human powered vehicles such as bikes that are close to the photographer, again you should use this if you want to show movement and pan to blur the background.
1/30th of a second: This is useful for shooting human powered vehicles at a distance. Again this is useful for panning and getting background blur.
½ of a second: this is the speed that Doug most likely used to snap his picture. However, depending on the speed of the water, and the exact effect that you want you may go up to one second for this effect.