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A while ago, I talked about exposure and how adjusting your ISO, aperture and shutter speed can affect the exposure of your photograph.

Later, I talked a little more about the magic of aperture and how opening our closing your aperture can result in either a shallow or deep depth of field.

Well. Today I’m going to talk about shutter speed, which I think will be easier for all of us to understand.

Fast shutter speed

If you use a fast shutter speed, you’re going to freeze time in your photo. I can think of two classic examples of freezing-time photos. The first is water drops. Now, I don’t have an off-camera flash, which is pretty much required for the typical “water drop” photos you’re probably thinking of, so I can’t explain those. However if you’d like to know how to do those, I suggest you read this Strobist article – and watch the incredibly helpful video in there that explains things nicely. Or, do a search on the internet, as there are TONS of tutorials on how to do this.

What I can show you is a picture of a water fountain that I took:

My shutter speed for this photo was 1/2500. So my shutter was open for 1/2500th of a second. That’s crazy. That’s how I was able to capture all those water droplets that your eye would never see.

The second reason I can think of to freeze time is a fun one… jumping! Obviously jumping photos are the best when you freeze someone (or a group of people – I love photos of bridal parties where everyone is in the air). The problem is, I really didn’t have anything that was a good example to show you that I’ve taken, so I tried to do one at the last minute and, well, it sucked, so I’m not going to bother even showing you what I got.

Instead, I suggest you do a search for “jump” in flickr and you’ll see much better examples than I’d EVER be able to give you.

Slow shutter speed

Once again, I can think of two good reasons for using a slower shutter speed… making water silky smooth and painting with light.

First, smooth water. I’m sure you’ve all seen photos of waterfalls where the water, well, looks silky smooth. Here’s my best example:

My shutter speed on that photo was 1/4 of a second. I was limited on that photo by two things: 1) It was really bright outside, so when I tried to go much longer than that, my water was getting really over-exposed and 2) At the time, I didn’t own a tripod, so I was resting my camera on a rock, which isn’t really the most stable environment for your camera, so when I set it for a longer shutter speed, I was still getting some camera shake.

Even so, you can still see the look I was going for.

The second example is painting with light. This is another fun one. Check out this example I did with a sparkler:

That says “iffles” in case you can’t tell. The shutter speed on this photo was set to 8 seconds. I also used a self timer (the camera is sitting on a table) and then ran out and wrote in the air with a sparkler (I can’t write backwards – I wrote naturally and then flipped the image in Gimp, which is why it looks like I’m writing with my left hand, though I’m really right-handed).

While writing your name or drawing shapes is fun, you can also get some cool abstract photos with long shutter speeds. Check out this photo from the same night as the sparkler photo – it was from some store-bought fireworks that were being set off in the yard:

I set the camera to 1/4 second shutter speed and moved it as the fireworks were going off. It’s still, to this day, my favorite abstract photo I’ve taken.

No Tripod?

So, what if you don’t have a tripod, and there’s no shelf or rock nearby that you can rest your camera on safely? Well, first of all, there’s a great rule of thumb that says you can handhold any shot for a shutter speed of 1/focal length. So, if you’re shooting with your 50mm prime lens, you can hand hold a shot of 1/50 or faster. But if you’re shooting at 250mm, you can only handhold at 1/250 or faster. It’s just a general rule of thumb but it tends to be pretty acurate.

There’s also some tips for keeping your body standing when you are hand-holding your camera:

• lean up against something, if you can
• use both hands
• Stand with your feet wide apart and put your weight on both feet
• Take a breath in, and take the shot while holding your breath
• Shoot in burst mode (when your camera takes multiple shots as you hold down the shutter) – first of all, this will give you a better chance of getting a good shot, but it also means that you won’t be moving the camera as you press down on the button after the first shot

So. What are you favorite types of photos to take where the shutter speed is really important?

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