| In photography, the use of shutter speeds to | | | | windy day and the trees are blowing, that |
| control moving subjects may seem | | | | movement will also appear as a blur in your |
| self-explanatory. But beginners be warned: there is | | | | photograph. |
| more to this important skill than meets the eye. | | | | Note: Just a quick tip for photographing waterfalls; |
| The main principles of shutter speed and | | | | not all subjects look best at very slow speeds. I |
| movement are easy to visualise. Your shutter is | | | | have found that cascading waterfalls that tumble |
| open for a certain period of time, and any | | | | over rocks look great at shutter speeds of about |
| movement that occurs during that time will be | | | | one second. On the other hand, waterfalls that spill |
| captured in the exposure. The longer you leave | | | | over a ledge and fall straight down often look |
| the shutter open and/or the faster the subject is | | | | better at faster speeds, perhaps 15/sec or 30 |
| moving, the more blurring will captured. | | | | sec. The bottom line is; experiment. Try a few |
| Let's say you are photographing a seagull flying | | | | different speeds for each subject and see which |
| past at the beach. At 1000/sec it will be pretty | | | | one works best. |
| well frozen. At 250/sec it will be fairly sharp, but | | | | The last point to make on the subject of |
| the wing tips may be quite blurred. At 30/sec the | | | | movement and shutter speeds it this: your |
| whole bird will be quite fuzzy. Once you get as | | | | shutter speed can never be seen in isolation from |
| slow as half a second, the seagull may be just a | | | | the other manual settings on the camera. |
| vague streak of white across the sky. | | | | I am frequently asked the following question. "I |
| Most of the time you want to freeze your | | | | tried the slow-shutter speed technique with a |
| picture so that everything is nice and sharp, but | | | | tripod, but it didn't work. My photo was all white. |
| this is not always the best approach. Sometimes | | | | What am I doing wrong?" |
| you may prefer to allow the moving subject to | | | | The mistake here is to forget that when you |
| become blurred, to capture a sense of motion in | | | | slow your shutter speed right down, you increase |
| your photograph. | | | | the amount of light in your exposure. If your |
| A popular example is waterfalls. You have | | | | photo is correctly exposed at, say, 250/sec, it is |
| certainly seen waterfall photos in which the water | | | | going to be massively overexposed if you just |
| appears a soft, silky flow of white, rather than as | | | | slow the shutter speed down to one second. If |
| sharp drops of water. This is simply a photo | | | | your camera is set to manual, you need to |
| taken at a very slow shutter speed, perhaps half | | | | remember to compensate for the increase in light |
| a second or slower. This is an easy effect to | | | | by closing your aperture to a smaller size. In this |
| capture, as long as you remember a few other | | | | way you can reduce the light (with the aperture) |
| important tips as well. | | | | by the same amount as you increased it (with |
| Any photo shot at very slow speeds must be | | | | the shutter speed), allowing you to capture the |
| taken with a tripod. Once your shutter speed falls | | | | movement without overexposing the image. |
| below about 60/sec, your hand movements | | | | So if your photo is correctly exposed at 30/sec |
| (involuntary) will cause the picture to blur and | | | | F-4, you can slow your shutter to 1 second, but |
| become fuzzy. The movement effect in the | | | | you also want to close your aperture to F-22 to |
| water is really only effective if the rest of the | | | | control the light. |
| picture is sharp. | | | | Sound complicated? It can be at first, but with |
| You also need to be sure that nothing else is | | | | practice you will get the hang of it. This is a skill |
| moving in the photo that you don't want blurred. | | | | worth learning, and the reward will be some great |
| For example, if you shoot your waterfall on a | | | | photography. Good luck and happy snapping. |