Shutter Speeds

What is shutter speed?

Shutter speed is the exposure time which is basically how long the shutter of the camera is open. Shutter speed can effect images by adding movement to them by using slower shutter speeds. If a faster shutter speed is used then this can stop movement in an image. You would use fast shutter speeds for things that are moving and you do not want to see movement in your photo such as people running, you would also use a fast shutter speed to prevent camera shake. Slow shutter speeds are used in photographs for movement. You can take photos of people moving, cars moving, lights and water and you can see the movement in the image.

My light trails

To create this image a slow shutter speed such as 1"6 was used. A light from a phone was used and I had to draw the shape in the air with the light and this is the effect that it created.

This photograph was taken of street lights and houses at night. I used a really slow shutter speed such as 4" to create this. I took the shot and whilst the shutter was open I moved the camera around and when I saw the end result had turned out like this I was happy because I think this looks effective.

Examples of fast shutter speeds

These 2 photographs are examples of fast shutter speed photography that i found on the internet.  You can tell a fast shutter speed was used to take these photographs as both the person and the bird are moving but you can't see any movement in the photograph.

Examples of slow shutter speeds

Both of these photographs were taken using a slow shutter speed. The first image was taken a night of cars driving along a road and by using a slow shutter speed they get the movement of the lights. The photograph of the horse has also been taken with a slow shutter speed because you can see the movement of the horse running in the photograph.

My shutter speed work

Apart from my light trail photographs I also have some other images taken using different shutter speeds.

This is photograph was taken using a slow shutter speed such as 0"5 to get this effect of the water.

This photograph is of the same thing but using a fast shutter speed such as 250 so the water looks how we see it normally.

This is a photograph I took using the shutter speed 1/30. By using this slow shutter speed I could get the effect of the car moving in my photograph.

These 2 photographs of the people at the skate park were both taken using a fast shutter speed, something such as 1/400 so that the people were sharp and in focus and you could need see any movement in the images, which is the effect I wanted here.