Okay, I may have fibbed… I think shutter speed may be my favourite exposure setting to play with!
My husband and I checked out the Dark Sky Festival in Jasper, Alberta this year and although we didn’t see any stars because of the sky clouding over, we discovered a new favourite spot at Pyramid Island. Ta-da!:
I’ll share how I took this photo in just a minute here, but first…
WHAT IS SHUTTER SPEED?
Remember from the Aperture post how light is let through the lens and then captured by the sensor in the camera body? Well the length of time that your camera shutter is open for plays a role in how much light is captured in the image.
From what I understand so far, the Shutter Speed does two things:
- controls how much light is being let through to the sensor as mentioned above
- affects how objects in motion will look in the resulting image
EXPANDING ON POINT 1:
How does changing the Shutter Speed affect how much light is being let through?
Think of a sponge for example. A dry sponge that’s dropped in a bucket of water for 30 seconds will soak in a lot more water than a sponge dropped in a bucket of water for half a second. Check out these sketches:
Shutter Speed works the same way. Shutter Speed is how long your sensor is exposed to light. The longer it’s exposed, the more light it will soak in. So it would be fair to say that a “slow” Shutter Speed such as 30″ (which means 30 seconds) will produce a brighter image than a “fast” Shutter Speed such as 1/2 (which means half a second) if all other exposure settings are kept the same.
EXPANDING ON POINT 2:
How does changing the shutter speed affect how motion will look?
Let’s say I want to photograph a waterfall. In one photo, I want the falling water to look frozen in time, in the other I want it to look smooth and soft. To capture the water in time, I’ll have to increase the Shutter Speed to something like 1/500 (which means one five hundredths of a second and is represented as 500 in the camera settings). At 1/500, for the brief moment that the shutter is open, the water will only move a short distance, pretty much discernible to my eye – so it will look as if the falling water is frozen in time.
To make the water look smooth and soft, I’ll slow down the Shutter Speed to 2″ (which means two seconds and is represnted as 2″ in the camera settings). With the shutter open for a whole two seconds, all the water in motion will be captured, and the result will look very smooth. To help visualize this check out the photos below. The photo on top was taken with a faster shutter speed than the photo on the bottom. Notice how smooth and soft the water on the bottom looks?:
My preference is the bottom shot. I love how the water almost looks like glass and the clouds seem to stretch out of the frame but I have a confession to make… In order to not overexpose the photo on the bottom, even though I slowed down the Shutter Speed, I had a little help from a new filter I got. It’s called a Variable Neutral Density Filter or Variable ND Filter and I’ll touch on this in the next post. Woohoo, exciting stuff!
Tip: Generally a Shutter Speed of 1/60 (one sixtieth of a second) is safe to avoid camera shake. Camera shake occurs when you don’t hold the camera still enough and you can see the resulting shake in the photo taken.
HOW TO CHANGE THE SHUTTER SPEED:
In the camera settings, Shutter Speed is shown as # (like 60, which means one sixtieth of a second). When we get to slower shutter speeds, it’s shown as #” (like 30″ for example, which means 30 seconds). I can change the Shutter Speed a few different ways on my Canon 70D, but here’s my favourite way:
- make sure I’m shooting in manual mode
- use the scroll wheel by my right pointer finger when folding the camera, whether looking through the eye piece or LCD screen, this number will change:
- scrolling the wheel left will slow down the Shutter Speed, while scrolling right will increase the Shutter Speed
HOW TO REMEMBER SHUTTER SPEED:
A faster Shutter Speed will let less light in and can freeze objects in motion. A slower shutter speed will let more light in and blur or smooth objects in motion.
As promised, check out the details below on how I took the soft water photo above:
TECHNICAL DETAILS AND GEAR USED:
Exposure for Pyramid Lake photo: ISO 100 f 16 4sec