Welcome back to another camera basics video, today explaining shutter speed.
I’m going to explain what shutter speed is, when and why to change it and how to use
it creatively. So, hopefully you’ve already watched our
aperture video, if not then please give it a watch in the card either here or here. I
don't know which side it is. And also don’t forget to subscribe to our
channel for more photo tips videos and please give this video a like if you find it helpful.
So, now that you’ve subscribed, let’s find out about shutter speed.
So the first question... What is Shutter Speed? The fundamental of photography is light. So
by controling and capturing the light around you will make an image. Shutter speed, Aperture
and ISO are three key elements to a perfectly expose image. They make up the Exposure triangle
so when we talk about perfect exposure, we mean whether a photo is too bright or too
dull. Is the sky blown out and over exposed? (Is it bright white when it should be blue?)
Or is your picture under exposed and darker than it should be?
We’ve talked in a previous video about how changing aperture can change the light entering
your camera. Shutter speed is another way of controlling how much light enters your
camera and exposes either your film or your digital camera sensor.
Aperture controls how much light gets through your lens. Shutter speed controls how much
of this light hits the sensor. ISO controls how sensitive your sensor is to light… but
we’ll cover this in another video.
So the next question... How is shutter speed measured?
Shutter speed is measured in seconds – usually fractions of a second, unless you’re doing
a long exposure. The time is how long the shutter is open on the camera. The shutter
is what covers your camera sensor – or film in a film camera – until you’re ready
to take a photo. When the shutter is open, the sensor is exposed and the image is captured.
For example, ½ means half a second, and 1/200 means on two hundredths of a second. So ½
is slower than 1/200. This means that the exposure time is longer for half a second
and more light will be captured. One two hundredth of a second is a lot shorter,
so less light is captured than at half a second. How long you open the shutter for aka the
shutter speed you choose, will depend on a number of factors.
So I'll speak about when you might use different shutter speeds and how image quality is affected:
A faster shutter speed will capture a crisp image with little blur, but it may limit the
amount of light you capture. This could result in an under-exposed image.
A slower shutter speed will let more light in, but in some cases this could be too much
light, resulting in an over-exposed image. It can also mean that any movement in the
scene – for example a moving object – or the movement of your own hands can be captured,
which results in blur.
A long exposure aka a longer shutter speed can be used to deliberately capture movement
in an image, for example water flowing in a waterfall, but here you’d need to consider
using a tripod. You’d also need to consider that you could still overexpose your image.
You could change your aperture to try to
compensate for this.
A really long exposure of several seconds at night time can allow you to capture light
trails from cars. You’d definitely need a tripod for this – no matter how steady
your hand are!
You might have shot using Automatic before, where the camera decides on the aperture and
shutter speed for you. I like using Aperture Priority – which means
I choose the aperture depending on the creative look I want to achieve and I let the camera
choose the shutter speed. However, if I was photographing sport or fast
moving wildlife, for example, I’d want to make sure my subject was sharp so I’d choose
Shutter Priority. This is the ‘S’ or ‘Tv’ on your camera’s mode dial depending on
which brand you use so that your camera does the calculation for you.
This gives me the control over the shutter speed. You could shoot in manual and control
both aperture and shutter speed, but a lot of the time it’s easier to focus on only
changing one key element, especially if you’re learning.
So I’d maybe use 1/500th for taking photos of cyclists, to ensure they’re sharp and
crisp. But for a fast moving car, I’d be looking
at 1/1000th of a second. Maybe for a bird in flight I’d consider
an even faster shutter speed of 1/2000th.
But what about using a slow shutter speed? Well, for a waterfall you can try 1/8th of
a second. Just enough to get the flow of the water, without overexposing your image.
There is a way to use a really long shutter speed without overexposing your image – you
can use an ND filter or neutral density filter. This is like putting sunglasses on your lens.
It allows you to do a long exposure, which captures movement… but reduces the light
entering your camera so your image isn’t over exposed!
Today I will be capturing a few examples... So of cyclists, of wildlife and also of running
water in a waterfall so today I will need an ND filter.
I’m using the ProMaster HGX variable ND filter. This reduces the light coming into
the camera between 1.3 and 8 stops, which gives me more control over the light coming
into the camera. So when we talk about “stops” we’re either talking about halving or doubling
light in photography. So this filter allows me to immediately remove over half the light
in a scene right up to almost darkness! It means I can get really creative with long
exposures and huge shutter speeds. So, we have a variety of Pro Master filters
over on our website, I will put the link in the description box below if you want to have
a look.
So the key points to remember about shutter speed:
Shutter speed is measured in seconds. Slow shutter speeds can let in more light,
but might cause blur and you might need a tripod.
Too slow a shutter speed could cause your image to be over-exposed. You may need to
change aperture, but this could compromise your creative look.
Fast shutter speeds can freeze action, but they may not let in enough light. You’d
have to compensate by adding in light from a flash or changing aperture or ISO.
Faster shutter speeds are better if you are shooting hand-held, to avoid all blur in your
phootgraphs.
Now, shutter speed in video is very different. I won’t go too much into detail on shutter
speed in video but if you would like more information on this then let me know in the
comment section and I will film a completely separate video.
Shutter speed in video has the same concept of the effects of a faster and slower shutter
speed. However, in video or film shutter speed becomes more distracting when it’s not set
to a standard speed. The general rule for cinematic video, your shutter speed should
be double your frame rate. For example, if you’re filming at 24fps, your shutter speed
should be set to 1/48th or to its closest value which would be 1/50th.
However, like photography you can challenge this rule for more of a creative influence
on your work. But changing the shutter speed you’ll change how your footage will look.
Too fast and it can look jerky. Too slow and it could look too soft.
Like I said earlier if you want me to dive into shutter speed in video then let me know
in the comment section below. Otherwise, it’s time to wrap up this video.
If you found this video helpful then please like, comment, subscribe and don’t forget
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Keep an eye out for our next video in this series, where we’ll be covering ISO.
So, until next I will see you all soon.