Learning Digital Photography
Understanding Shutter Speed

When you're learning digital photography understanding shutter speed is important. Controlling the speed of your shutter will help you achieve different effects with your photography. These digital photography tips will explain shutter speed and show you two examples of the types of pictures you can take with different shutter speeds.

Think of the shutter as a gate that lets light into your camera. When the gate is open light can enter the camera hitting the sensor to create an image. When the gate is closed no light gets in. The shutter speed is a measurement of how long that gate (the shutter) stays open.

Shutter speed is measured in seconds ranging from 1 or more seconds to 1/3000 of a second or even less. Use a slow shutter speed to take a picture in a low light situation or cause a motion blur effect. Use a faster shutter speed in bright situations or to freeze action.

Some cameras, like my Sony a700, show shutter speed in factions, but most show the shutter speed in whole numbers. These whole numbers represent a fraction. For example, if your camera reading says the shutter speed is 30 it really means that it is 1/30 of a second.

Slower shutter speeds will contain quotation marks. For example 2" is 2 seconds.

There is another shutter speed that you may want to use sometimes. This speed is called bulb and it allows you to leave the shutter open as long as you want. When using bulb you should use a tripod to avoid camera shake and a remote shutter release. Press the shutter release to open the shutter. Then press it again when you want to close the shutter.

When photographing people unless you want to have some motion blur effect in your picture you shouldn't use a shutter speed any slower than 1/60 of a second. Having the shutter open for a longer space of time will increase the probability of some blur appearing in your photo. If you are taking pictures at a shutter speed slower then 1/60 of a second you should use a tripod to avoid getting blurry images.

If you're taking pictures at a sports event try setting your shutter speed fast to a setting around 1/500 of a second to freeze motion.

When you're learning digital photography knowing specific pictures you can take with different shutter speeds can be helpful. Here are examples of pictures you can take with slow and fast shutter speeds.

Slow Shutter Speed

When I want to use motion blur in my pictures or do something like draw with light I use a slow shutter speed.

The picture above is an example of light drawing. All you need to get this effect is a tripod, a flashlight, remote shutter release, and darkness.

I set my camera to manual mode and adjusted the aperture to F14, the shutter speed to 15", and the ISO to 100. Then I put the camera on a tripod. I turned out all the lights, turned on my flashlight, and used my remote to release the shutter. Then I used the flashlight to write the word in the air. I'm no good at writing backwards so after I took the image I used my editing software to flip it so the word would be the right way around. When you're learning digital photography trying techniques like this can be quite fun.

Depending on the brightness of your light you may want to experiment with using different aperture settings to get the result you want. You want to keep the aperture closed pretty small though so your not getting a completely lit up scene. You can also experiment with leaving the shutter open for more or less time.

Fast Shutter Speed

You can use a fast shutter speed to capture motion. When your learning digital photography one of the first things you realize is that all of the setting on your camera work together to help you get the image you want. Adjusting the shutter speed is important, but you also have to adjust other settings work with your shutter speed to get the desired result.

When I took the above picture I was having a difficult time freezing the motion. This was one of my first attempts at taking this type of picture and I wasn't sure how to go about doing it. Even though it was a sunny day I ended up setting my ISO very high so that I could have my shutter open for a very short time and still get enough light onto the sensor to make the image. I set the ISO to 800. To allow even more light into the camera I set the aperture to F3.5. Then I set my shutter speed to a very fast 1/8000.

Experimenting with your camera's manual mode can help you learn how to capture all kinds of interesting images.

If you're learning digital photography and you liked this explanation about shutter speed check out our other basic digital photography lessons.