Mi primera Reflex: Basic Concepts 2: Shutter Speed

Second entry about the most important basic ideas to start in photography:

1. Diaphragm Aperture.
2. Shutter Speed.
3. ISO.
4.Exposure/Overposure/Under exposure.
5. Focal Distance.

2. SHUTTER SPEED.

The shutter speed is the time we leave the sensor exposed to the light. It could be said that, It's the time it takes the shoot. Have not you configured sometime your compact camera to take a night picture and you've noticed it took more time than usual? That is because, night pictures -with poor light- the shutter speed increase and could take the picture even for several seconds (And you probably got it moved)

- It is measured in fractions of seconds (1/1000) or seconds (3"). In that way, if we want to catch something in motion, we should shoot quicker to avoid that the subject appears moved. The typical picture of a friend jumping. Did you take it moved? You should decrease the shutter speed to take the picture quicker. In this example, we pass from 1/30 seconds to 1/320.

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- It affects mainly to the time which the light reach the sensor, what has influence on:

Picture exposure, photo could be catched lighter or darker. If light condition are very good, and we make the shoot very long, sensor will receive too much light and picture will be too light.

http://www.shortcourses.com/

Movement effect in the picture. If we want to get a frozen picture, without movement, we'll use quick shoots. However, if we would like to add dynamism or movement, we should play with slower shutter speeds.

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Now let's see some examples:

http://www.hiboox.es/

http://www.luchotv.com/

http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/

Water is a element very used to understand how Shutter Speed works. We can decide from to freeze the water drops, to add some movement or to manipulate the water fall in to a silk effect.

Silk Effect is gotten decreasing the shutter speed, in that way, we catch the water movement in the picture -opposite to freeze it-. Silk effect examples:

http://rincondelfotografo.blogspot.de/

Recommendations for the shutter speed use:

+ If we are taking a picture of a moving subject, a football player, a cyclist, a vehicle, an animal, a jump, etc... We should play with faster shutter speed what allows us to focus and/or freeze our subject or object.

http://petapixel.com/

+ If we want to create movement effect in our pictures, we use slower shutter speed. In my opinion the limit should be where our subject/object is completely out-of-focus and picture is uncomfortable to look at. We can create pictures as interesting as these examples:

http://www.picturecorrect.com/

http://digital-photography-school.com/

+ Or If we already have a tripod to hold the camera stable, we can program very slow shutter speeds (even minutes or hours) what will be able to catch the whole halo movement of fireworks, car lights or even the stars.