Digital Photography School Projects - Learning to Use Shutter Speed

Learning photography from books is useless if the course does not have a big emphasis on practical assignments or projects. This is a great way to evaluate the course material. It's pointless learning the fundamentals of photography without actually putting it into practise. This series of articles aims to do just that.

The amount of light that reaches the camera's digital sensor is not only controlled by the aperture of the lens but also by the shutter. The speed of the shutter ranges from 1 second all the way up to 1/4000th of a second or higher. Shutters are calibrated in such a way that each setting is half or twice the speed of the setting next to it so that the difference is equal to one f-stop of aperture.

The shutter speed is used to control the amount of movement of a subject reflected by how blurred or how sharp the image is. This is all well and good but in order for you to really get to understand how shutter speed works you need to get into action and shoot photos while changing the various settings.

So on with the project. For this first part of the project ask a friend to help you as the subject. Get them to walk briskly past you, so that they fit in the frame, at a normal walking speed.

1. For your first shot set the shutter speed to 1/15th of a second. Make sure that you are holding the camera steady or have it mounted on a tripod if you have one. Shoot the image a few times. Download the image to your PC and what do you see? You should see a slightly blurred image.

2. For your second shot change the shutter speed to 1/60th or 1/100th of a second. Again make sure that the camera is being held steady or on a tripod. Take the photo a few times at both shutter speeds and then download the image to your PC. What do you see? You should see a fairly clear image, maybe lacking a little detail, but with the arms and legs slightly blurred.

3. For your third photo series set the shutter speed to 1/250th of a second or higher.

Take the photo a few times and then download the image to your PC. Quite different from the first shots you took? There should now be no blur whatsoever. By shooting on the higher shutter speeds the camera freezes the image and your subject should be pin sharp and their motion frozen in midstep.

You can now see that by varying your shutter speeds you are able to create different effects in the image. A photo that is frozen in time is not always better than one that is slightly blurred conveying motion. Using shutter speed correctly allows you to be more creative with parts of the image blurred and parts sharp and well defined.

Let's get on to the second part of the project. This time you need to find a location where vehicles are going past at the speed limit in a residential area. Again the whole subject should be visible in the frame. Try to shoot against a fairly plain background. I want you place you feet apart so that you are firmly anchored with minimum sway as you stand. Bring you camera to you eye and lock your arms to the side of your chest.

Hopefully you are now a human tripod. I want you keep your feet firmly anchored to the ground while moving at the waist from left to right or vice versa. This is called panning. What you need to do is to turn to the left moving only at the waist and then track or follow your subject as it comes past you to your right. Your action should be fluid. As the vehicle reaches the position directly in front of you press the shutter button gently but continue tracking the vehicle as it disappears to your right. The whole action from left to right should be one fluid movement.

1. For your first shot set your shutter speed to 1/30th of a second and pan as the vehicle passes you and take the shot directly in front of you. View it on your PC and what do you see? The car should be blurred. This shutter speed is too slow. It gives the appearance of speed and is still a very effective image.

2. The second shot should be taken at 1/100th of a second. In this image you should see the vehicle reasonably sharp against a blurred background. You are starting to get a great image giving a good impression of speed.

3. In your third image or series of images set the shutter speed to 1/250th of a second and take the shot. The car should be frozen with even the wheels showing a lot of detail. The background will be reasonably blurred although much sharper than the other images.

So what have you learned? The choice of shutter speed is very subjective depending on the type of image you want to create. Varying your shutter speed gives different results depending on the final image you are trying to create. The key is to experiment and find out what each speed does under a variety of conditions. The choice is yours.