Shutter speed

Shutter speed is one of the three pillars of photography. Shutter speed, aka exposure time, or sometimes also called just an exposure. All digital single lens reflex cameras (DSLR) have a piece of cloth, between the lens and the camera’s sensor, called ‘shutter’. When you press the ‘shutter button’ to take a picture, it opens the cloth (shutter) for certain period of time to let light in on your camera’s sensor. It will then shut back to finish the exposure and save the picture on your memory card. Depending on your camera you can set your camera’s shutter speed to:

Bulb or sometimes only denoted by letter ‘B’, 30″, 20″, 10″, 5″, 1″, 1/2, 1/5, 1/10, 1/100, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, 1/4000, 1/8000 

Shutter speed creates dramatic effects by either freezing action or blurring motion. If the shutter speed is fast, for example 1/500 of a sec, it can completely freeze action.

Photo from: http://blogs.courant.com/ – fast shutter speed

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the other hand if the shutter speed is slow, for example 5 sec, it blurs motion.

M. Ali Changezi photography – Slow shutter speed

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So if you were to freeze action, you would use fast shutter speed like 1/500th of a second or above for general photography and 1/1,000th of a second or above for capturing flying birds.

photographylife.com – fast shutter speed to capture the flying bird