A Beginner's Guide to Shutter Speed

Understanding how to leverage shutter speed is one of the biggest keys to mastering photography. This highly informative video provides a comprehensive beginner's guide to shutter speed, with tips for both basic and more creative techniques.

Coming to you from Photo Genius, this great video tutorial examines shutter speed, explaining how the shutter controls light exposure by opening and closing at different speeds. Slowing down the shutter speed allows you to shoot even in low light. This opens up creative options like shooting at sunrise/sunset or doing light painting at night. Conversely, faster speeds freeze action for crisp sports, wildlife, or moving subject photos. In fact, shutter speed is normally simultaneously a creative and technical decision, as you need to understand how to ensure you get a sharp shot free of motion blur or camera shake while still letting enough light in for a balanced exposure, but you will often want to vary the shutter speed in various ways to introduce a certain look. Along with aperture and ISO, it is a parameter that every budding photographer should prioritize building a mastery of, as those three exposure controls will form the basis of just about every other technique you will learn. Check out the video above for the full rundown.

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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1 Comment

Excellent teaching video! So well done that I can now sayOh Yeah that is what shutter speed is all about! Thank you.