One of the most significant camera settings in photography and exposure triangle is Shutter Speed. In my opinion, shutter speed is the most important concept in photography. With changing the speed, you can take bright or dark photos, but it’s not everything and you can create creative and beautiful effects.
Based on the speed of your shutter, you can freeze the subject or take a photo with a motion effect and capture the movement of the objects.
Table of Contents
What is the shutter speed?
If you don’t have the patience to read, look at the below chart:
In simple words, the shutter speed is the duration of time that the shutter will be open to capture the image. It affects the amount of light entering the camera, and you can freeze or blur any moving subject in the image.
The shutter speed has a range from milliseconds(very fast) which will create a short exposure, to minutes(very slow) which will create a long exposure, and the bulb(open).
For example, if you want to take a shoot a waterfall, and you want to blur the water cascading down, it might use the shutter speed of 1/2 or even 1.
But if you want to freeze a basketball player on the air, you might use the 1/500 or 1/1000 shutter speed.
Understanding the shutter speed will go a long way in helping you become a professional photographer. So try it, use it and explore and experiment with it. For having full control of speed, you should use the manual mode or shutter priority mode.
How to measure the shutter speed?
Shutter speed is a fraction of a second or a full second or in some cases is more than one second.
e.g. 1/2 means the shutter is open for half a second. 1/500 means it’s open for one-five-hundredth of a second. 1″ means one second, etc.
Most mirrorless and DSLR cameras, according to the manufacturer, offering a range between 30 seconds to 1/8000th a second.
Shutter speed range
For different situations, we use different speeds. In general, the shutter speed can be classified into four groups:
- Fast speeds
- Moderate speeds
- Slow speeds
- Very slow speeds
These numbers are general, and they can be different on different cameras and different brands.
Fast speeds
1/8000, 1/4000, 1/2000, 1/1000, 1/500
In general, we use fast shutter speeds for two different situations. The first is when we want to freeze the fast-moving subject. The second is when we want to use a high aperture lens like f/1.4 on a very sunny day to make a blurry background.
Moderate speeds
1/250, 1/125, 1/60, 1/30
This range uses for regular photography in regular situations. At these shutter speeds, you can still carry the camera, and the tripod is not required.
Slow speeds
1/15, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 1 second
This range of speeds is used for making blurry subjects. For shooting with slow shutter speeds, definitely you need to use a tripod to prevent camera shaking. We use this range of speeds for showing movement in photos.
Very slow speeds
2+ seconds
This range of speeds is used for making more blurry subjects, especially at night. Except that, the very slow shutter speed is used for astronomy photography. You have probably guessed you should use a tripod at very slow speeds.
Summary
In short, the faster speed gives you the ability to freezing the motions, and less light can enter the camera. The slower shutter speed allows you to blur the movement and bring more light to the camera.
If you only remember these two things, you went more than half of the way. The other half will come with experience. So get out with your camera and tripod and start experimenting.