shutter priority or time value as it's also known is a
semi-automatic mode on your camera which allows you to choose a
shutter speed
and the camera will go away and find an aperture to work with it
therefore the camera is automatically controlling the exposure
whilst you control the shutter, you're saying the shutter is
the most important thing in the whole wide world and that's what i want to use.
now shutters predominately an exposure control
the longer the shelter is open for more light comes in, the less time the shutter is
open
less light comes in but you can also use them creatively
but it's all about motion a slow shutter speed will blur motion and get a real
dynamic feel of moving in it
and a fast shutter speed will freeze it, hold it solid
that's why I'm walking round and round in circles.
Now to demonstrate how the camera can freeze motion by using shutter priority
what i'm gonna do is do a shot of my old skater mate Lawrence,
coming past this grafitti behind me, but first we gotta set up the camera.
so we're in shutter priority mode already, in want a fast shutter speed
to freeze Lawrence
and the background as he comes past it.
So i'm gonna use a five hundreth of a second, that is a pretty fast shutetr speed which will
be plenty to freeze something like a skateboarder. So i set the five hundred
just look through the viewfinder of where you're gonna be shooting to make sure the
exposures okay,
and straight away I can see it says low
in the aperture side of you know the display.
The reason for this is that a 500th of a second in rather dull light like
this
the camera can't find a big enough aperture to make that shutter speed work.
now when you're in shutter priority mode you also have control of your white
balance
and your Iso, now nothing on a camera works in isolation, if you tweak one
thing you usually got to tweak something else.
I'm gonna tweak the Iso, because if I make the sensor more sensitive
it will scoop up more light and it will allow the camera to find an
aperture to work with if you're not sure about Iso's then you need to watch the Iso
film.
So press the Iso button, let's rack that up, i'm gonna go to 1000 Iso,
so it's a much more sensitive
sensor. If I point it at the wall over there yeah, i'm getting
between f7 and f8 now the camera now has the ability to choose an aperture to
work with
the shutter speed up chosen. let's see if we can get a shot Lawrence coming down
the path now.
Lawrence go for it.
Yeah that's reall cool. All you have to do is put your focusing gun site on
Lawrence in continuous mode
and hold it there as he comes past, I'm panning the camera so everythings on
the move
but as you can see the shot of lawrence is beautifully frozen against
the background.
With this shot what I wanna do
is to get Lawrence fairly sharp against the background as he skateboards through
but i want the background to blur to do that I'm gonna set a slower shutter
speed or slow-ish
and I'm gonna move the camera with Lawrence's as he comes through.
now if you try this technique yourself and get it wrong don't lose heart
it really is quite tricky have to do it many many times to get it right
outside of film land we actaully did this about twenty times before i actually
got the right shot
and because i've already done it i know which shutter speed i need,
I find that at a 50th of a second with lawrence going through
I get the result i want. So set up the camera,
shutter priority I'm gonna set a 50th of a second
onto the camera now the camera is straight away setting the aperture for me
again look where the shots gonna be
it's over there now i'm getting a high reading, this time.
so I'm gonna lower my Iso okay, because
the Iso is now at 1000
from the last shot it's really really sensitive it's not letting the camera
find a small enough aperture
for me to use for ther slow shutter speed. The shutters open for a long time and lot's of light comes in.
So, change the Iso let's take that all the way back down
i'm gonan go to round about 200, 250 maybe
let's have a look, er 250th of a second, sorry Iso 250
it gives me f16 aperture, the camera
can find and aperture. Just kind of like go and watch the aperture films, and the Iso films
if you haven't quite got your head around that bit.
We're now set up, I know what's going on. Lawrence go for it.
I'm gonna pan with Lawrence as he comes through the shot, Now
start shooting as he goes through, there we go.
Yeah, bingo, look. We've got a nice blurred background
and Lawrence is pretty sharp I'd gone with Lawrence, my movements is with
Lawrence but the
blurred background is going on. Suppose you wanna shoot the classic waterfall
shot it's the same thing
it's only instead moving the camera you look good on the tripod
you could you shutter priority to set a slow shutter speed now the waterfall
shot generally speaking needs about
a half a second exposure, that's a very long exposure
and you may need to start adding neutral density filters, i'm not talking about that in this
one.
hopefully that has explained shutter priority to you, where you can use it and how to set
it.