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#3 - Shutter Speed
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Why Are
You Doing this Assignment?
Shutter speed is a valuable tool
for showing time and motion in your photography.
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A Little History
Freezing motion, or showing motion as blurs, has been done by
photographers from the early days to the present.
The French inventor Niépce succeeded in fixing (making it insensitive
to light after developing) a photographic image as early as 1817.
His earliest existing picture was taken in 1827 using an eight-hour
exposure.
By 1859, faster shutters, and more sensitive films, enabled photographers
to freeze the motion of pedestrians.
The writer and physician, Oliver Wendell Holmes (his son became
a Supreme Court judge), used photographs of people walking to design
better artificial limbs for Civil War veterans.
Eadweard Muybridge created a sensation in 1879 when he photographed
a trotting horse with twelve cameras.
The shutters were tripped by wires across the track.
He discovered that horses have all four legs up in the air at
one point in their stride, but the legs are tucked under the belly.
The legs never extend out like a hobbyhorse.
In 1880, he projected these images on a screen in quick succession,
making an early motion picture.
Do the Following
1) Set your exposure-mode dial to shutter-priority exposure
mode (S or Tv).
2) Look for motion.
3) Photograph it using two shutter speeds: slow and fast.
Use 1/8th for a slow shutter speed.
Use 1/1,000th for the fast shutter speed.
Blinking Hi
If you're using a slow shutter speed, and there's too much light,
Hi will blink in your viewfinder.
Your camera may not operate.
The slow shutter speed is letting lots of light into the
camera.
Your camera blocks this abundance of light by making the lens
opening smaller.
When your camera is blinking Hi, the lens opening has to be f/32, f/64,
or f/128.
But, the lens opening can't go
any smaller than about f/29.
Your camera doesn't have such miniscule lens openings, so,
it blinks Hi.
You can:
• Lower the ISO.
• Photograph in the shade or at twilight.
Blinking Lo
If you're using a fast shutter speed, Lo will blink in your
viewfinder, if there's too little light.
When the light is dim, your camera makes the lens
opening larger.
For proper exposure, the lens opening has to be f/2.8 or f/1.4.
But, the lens opening can't become larger than about f/3.5 or
f/4.
You can:
• Increase the ISO.
• Photograph in brighter light.
Tips
• Don't confuse 8" with 1/8th.
Most cameras denote full-second shutter speeds with quote marks.
Thus, 8 represents an exposure of 1/8th of a second.
Whereas, 8" represents an eight second exposure.
Don't set your camera to do eight second exposures when you want
to do exposures of 1/8th of a second.
• Set your camera on, say, a newspaper box, when using slow shutter
speeds.
• If you're using slow shutter speeds in bright light, set the
ISO to the lowest value, such as 100.
• Point-and-shoot cameras don’t have small lens openings,
due to diffraction.
The smallest lens opening is often f/8.
Therefore, when using slow shutter speeds with a point-and-shoot
camera, the light must be dim.
More Tips
• Motion that is moving left to right will be more evident than
motion that is coming toward you.
• There's a delay between when you press the shutter, and the
shutter actually opens.
Therefore, for action photography, you have to take the picture
a little before you think you should.
• Flags are difficult to photograph with slow shutter speeds.
You need a very windy day, with quickly changing wind gusts.
For More Experienced Students
If you know your way around your camera, try some of the suggestions
below.
A Bungee Jumper Frozen
In Mid-fall Panic
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Fast shutter speed
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Steady
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Moving
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Frozen subject
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Autumn Leaves Floating Down
A Stream as Streaks of Yellow
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Slow shutter speed
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Steady
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Moving
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Blurred subject
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City Lights as Streaks, Jiggles, & Swirls
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Slow shutter speed
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Moved, panned, swirled, etc.
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Moving
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Lights leave streaks
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Zooming During the Exposure
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Slow shutter speed
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Steady or moving
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Steady or moving
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Going warp-speed-style streaks
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Zoom in or out on a neon deli sign, a blinking don't walk sign,
or something else.
Use 1/4th of a second, or thereabouts.
Start zooming and then press the shutter release.
Panning
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Slow shutter speed
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Moving
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Moving
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Background is blurred left-to-right.
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Panning is a film/video technique.
You pan, or move, the camera
along with the subject.
Panning Tips
• Use 1/8th and 1/15th of a second
• Use a telephoto lens at its most telephoto setting, such as
200mm.
• Set the switch on or near your lens to manual focus.
Manually
focus where the subject will be in front of you.
• Plan on continuing the motion of your camera past the time
the picture is taken, like the follow-through when you swing a tennis
racket or golf club.
• If your camera or lens has image stabilization, turn this
feature off, if you can.
A few cameras will sense that you're panning, and will turn
of the horizontal image stabilization automatically.
