The Effect

As I mentioned in my previous post, shutter speed is the length of time that the shutter is open and passing light onto the camera’s film or digital sensor. When most people use their cameras, they use them in an ‘Auto’ mode, where the camera adjusts all of the settings for them automatically. Typically, only the amount of lighting affects the shutter speed when in automatic mode. When the lighting is darker, the camera automatically adjusts for a slower shutter speed, allowing as much light in as possible. However, you can benefit from adjusting the shutter speed in more ways than just the surrounding light.

In almost all situations where your subject is a live being (human, animal, insect, etc.), a slow shutter speed will result in unwanted blurring in your photo without making your subject stay still for an extended period of time while the shutter is open. This doesn’t work too well when your trying to take pictures of your children’s soccer game. But when you’re taking pictures of non-living beings (notwithstanding plant life) an extended shutter speed may give you that “pizazz” in your photographs that separates you from the rest.

One example of this is photographing fireworks. If you were to use a slow shutter speed the firework explosion will look frozen, and may not capture the overall look and feel of the explosion. Take the examples below:

You’ll notice the largest impact of this fast shutter speed in the second picture, where the shot was initiated at the very beginning of the explosion. Although the shutter speeds on these two shots were 1/2 and 1 second respectively, each only captured a very small portion of the firework explosion.

Now, look at a couple of shots with longer shutter speeds:

You’ll notice, in these two shots, long streaks coming from the fireworks, creating a far better shot than the first two images. Both of these shots were taken with a shutter speed of approx. 2 second.

Another subject that a longer shutter speed can make your shots look better is water, such as a waterfall or river. Just like with the fireworks, a fast shutter can cause the water to “freeze”, losing the feeling of motion in the shot. Take the following example:

The water in this image appears frozen, and although you know the water is falling its effect is lost in this shot. This image was shot on a very sunny day, at ƒ/10 with a shutter speed of 1/400.

Now, take the following example shot at ƒ/36, with a shutter of 1/13.

You’ll notice that because the shutter was open longer, the water blurred slightly as it moves while the shutter is open. This gives the shot a feeling of motion.

You’ll also notice that because the shutter was open longer, allowing more light in, that the camera had to adjust the aperture size to ƒ/36, a very small opening, to compensate for the lengthened shutter speed.

How To?

There are two ways to alter the shutter speed of your camera. One is more difficult, and that is the Manual setting on your camera. This setting allows you to chose all aspects of the settings in getting your shot, shutter speed, aperture setting, etc. I do not recommend using the Manual setting for these types of shots.

The setting I used is the “Shutter priority” setting. Shutter priority allows you to chose the desired shutter speed, while allowing the camera to automatically adjust the other settings of the camera, such as the aperture size. You’ll want to check your camera’s manual to find out exactly how to use your camera in shutter priority mode, but I’ll provide the steps for the Nikon D40, which may be similar for your camera.

To switch the camera into shutter priority, look for the Mode dial on your camera. Most dSLRs have the Mode dial on the top of the body. Point-and-shoot cameras may be on the top or back side, or they may not have one at all, requiring the use of the on-screen menus. If your camera has a Mode dial, it will look similar to this:

To get this particular Mode dial (as well as on Nikons) into shutter priority mode, you would need to select “S”, for Shutter. As far as I know, Canon still uses the symbol “Tv” to represent shutter priority on their Mode dials. I then select my desired shutter speed by holding the “Info” button (near the shutter release button), and toggling the real dial to the left (longer shutter speed) or right (shorter shutter speed). Once the desired shutter speed is selected, release the “Info” button, and frame and shoot your picture as you normally would.

Once finished shooting, remember to switch your Mode dial back to “Auto” or to “P” (Program Mode), or else all of you future shots will remain in shutter priority.

Remember, I provided instructions for doing this on a Nikon D40 dSLR. Check your camera’s manual for directions on using your particular camera model.