Photography Fundamentals – Shutter Speed

What’s shutter speed all about?

Well, there are three fundamental components of any camera that work together when we set up and take a photo. These are the photosensitive medium (film or sensor), the aperture (the opening where light enters the camera), and the shutter.

The shutter physically sits  in between the aperture and the photosensitive medium. You can think of it as a small light-proof window or door that opens to let light through when we take a photo.

The term “shutter speed” doesn’t refer to the speed at which the shutter opens or closes, but rather, the length of time it stays open to let light through. Generally speaking, we adjust our shutter speed to compensate for different lighting conditions, but when adjusted thoughtfully and with purpose it can also be used to create interesting artistic effects.

Exposure

In bright light, such as outside on a sunny day, we generally use a very fast shutter speed. In these conditions, a relatively slow shutter will cause the film or sensor of our camera to become over exposed resulting in areas of the frame (or the whole frame) that are white, with no detail. In stark contrast to this, slow shutter speeds are usually used in low light situations such as night time photography or indoors. Using a fast shutter speed in a dark room will leave our film or sensor under exposed and will result in areas of the shot that are dark or even black because there hasn’t been enough light to “burn in” and create the image. There are other factors to consider too such as whether our subject is moving or stationary. Are we using a flash? …and as the photographer,  what are our intentions? What do we want the photo to look like when we’re done?

Effects

A number of effects can be achieved by altering the speed of our shutter. For instance, a slow shutter speed with a moving subject will result in the subject blurring in the photo and, if the background is stationary, it will remain completely in focus essentially turning our subject into a ghostly looking figure.

Or in contrast, we can follow a moving subject as it moves by us or with us at speed (this is called “tracking”). When we take the photo, the background will be a blur whilst the subject remains in focus conveying a sense of speed to the viewer. Take a look at the embedded image on this post for an example of this effect.

You can read more about shutter speed at Wikipedia

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