Remember my tutorial on Basic Aperture? Well here we are going to go over Shutter Speed and how it can affect your photos!

Now, as I’ve said before, photography is all about light. The LONGER the shutter is open, the MORE light is let through, the SHORTER amount of time a shutter is open, the LESS light is let through.

Another way to not only control the amount of light but to control the mood, action, movement, and flow of a photo is by using your shutter speed to either slow it way down or speed it way up.

I suggest (if your camera has this option) you shoot in shutter priority (usually SP or S on the dial). You can control the shutter speed and it will automatically select the aperture.

1/4th sec

1/13th sec

1/30th sec

1/100th sec

1/500th sec

As you can hopefully see in the progression here, going from a slower shutter speed made the water more smooth, silky, and less defined, by the end of the progression you can see how it caught a lot more of the action, the water was VERY defined and almost “frozen”.

When it comes to shutter speed, it’s defined by time. How many seconds or fractions of a second does it take to shoot that photo. For example having your shutter speed be 1 second would be considered a “slow” shutter speed, while 1/500th of a second would be considered a “fast” shutter speed.

Here are a few random examples of photographs I’ve shot over the years.

8 seconds

1/1600 sec

1/4th sec

1/8th sec

By using a slower shutter speed you really should use a tripod otherwise the photo can be blurry, generally everything BELOW 1/80th of a sec will need a stable base like a tripod or wall or table.

So to sum it up, if you want to take a photo that you want well defined and crisp, use a fast shutter speed (example: an exploding snowball against a tree). If you want a more moody or silky photo, a photo that shows movement, use a slow shutter speed (example: fireworks).

Photography is all about light.

Controlling aperture permits YOU to control the amount of light and there by controlling depth of field (how sharp or blurry the photo is).

I suggest (if your camera has this option) you shoot in aperture priority (usually AP or A on the dial). You can control the aperture and it will automatically select a shutter speed.

Basically when it comes to aperture, the LOWER the number, the MORE light is let through and the more SHALLOW (or fuzzy) the photo/background becomes. The HIGHER the number, LESS light is let through and MORE of the photo is in focus.

f/2.8

f/4

f/8

f/13

f/20

f/32

As you can see in this progression, starting with the first photo, barely anything is in focus, the background is just a wash of color and only a couple petals are in focus, by the time you reach the last photo, EVERYTHING is in focus including the window screen which is now well defined.

When you hear someone saying, “I shot wide open”, usually they are referring to using a LOWER number aperture, like f/1.8 for example, which lets MORE light through the lens and creates SHALLOW depth of field.

Now remember how I mentioned that photography is all about light? If you are in a brightly lit area, direct sun for example, you may NOT want to shoot “wide open”. Doing so again lets the maximum amount of light through the lens and in that bright scene it could be TOO much light and overexpose (make the photo too bright/white/washed out) your photo.

Eventually I will do a really basic shutter explanation, ISO, and how to put aperture and shutter speed together.