Knowing what shutter speed does is vital for controlling your images. That’s not just how it affects exposure, but changing the shutter speed has a knock-on effect that can dramatically alter the look of a photo. Here’s an explanation and some exercises for you to try.
The big temptation for photographers is to go from one extreme to another. A fast shutter can stop movement, show movement, or even blur it so much that it makes a moving subject disappear. However, many don't realize the subtle nuances that can be achieved by changing the time the shutter is open by just one or two stops.
However, the speed you choose is dictated by factors other than just exposure.
The Effect of Proximity
Firstly, there is the moving subject's proximity to the camera. Imagine you are sitting in a car and looking through the side window. The road near you rushes by so quickly that it is blurred. Consequently, you cannot identify any features on the road surface. Meanwhile, the distant landscape seems to pass at a more leisurely pace. So, to stop the motion of a close object, you will need a faster shutter speed.
Exercise 1
Set your lens to its widest angle and the camera’s shutter speed to 1/60 second. This speed approximates the perception of the human eye. Get a friend or family member to stand about 20 yards away and wave at you. Take a photo.
Now ask them to halve the distance and, without changing any camera settings, take another shot. Then, halve the distance again, and repeat until they are a couple of yards away. Observe what happens to the blurriness of their hand as they get closer to you.
The Effect of Focal Length
The same applies to using wide angle or telephoto lenses. A moving subject that passes slowly across the frame with a 12mm lens will be gone in a blink with a longer lens, so a faster shutter is required. Likewise, that long lens will exaggerate any camera movement. Therefore, you will require a fast shutter if you do not want to show that movement.
Exercise 2
Repeat the above exercise, but now get your friend to stand still about five yards away. Instead of them moving, zoom in on their hand as they wave.
Stopping or Showing Movement Blur
Of course, the subject's speed will also dictate how fast a shutter you will need to stop the action. A fast-moving bird will require a faster shutter speed to stop its movement than a tortoise will.
Exercise 3
Set the camera to 1/60 second and take shots while your friend waves slowly. Ask them to speed up gradually and take more photos. You will see the hand becoming increasingly blurred with each photograph.
Your Camera Makes a Difference
The crop factor of your camera will also affect the amount of blur in a shot. A slower shutter speed on a 35mm sensor camera is needed to achieve the same amount of motion blur as you would with a Micro Four Thirds (MFT) camera, assuming the same focal length and subject distance. Similarly, an MFT camera would need a faster shutter speed to stop movement.
Don’t Copy His Settings, They May Be Wrong
No universal rules exist for stopping or blurring action with a camera. Although they can be a good guide, it’s pointless to copy others' settings. Only experience will help you learn what settings you need for any situation.
The Same Photo at Different Shutter Speeds
Here is an example of the same photo shot at different shutter speeds. I shot these photos for this article on the West Coast of Scotland. There, the weather changes every few minutes. Therefore, the aperture and ISO settings to achieve the required shutter speed varied a bit between the shots. Furthermore, to reach some of the fastest shutter speeds, I opened the aperture to f/2.8. As a consequence, the depth of field varied too.
Let’s start with this version. It is a 75-second exposure shot at f/5.6, ISO 200, using a combination of an Urth Plus+ ND1000 filter and the camera's built-in OM-1 Mark II Live ND feature, the inbuilt ND filter. The water is completely blurred.
Next, I removed the ND1000 filter and used just the Live ND. Here’s a 5-second version of the same shot. There’s very little difference between this and the previous version because the fast-moving water travels a long way across the frame, but close inspection shows some definition of water droplets.
At 3.2 seconds, there is a tiny amount of extra definition in the water, but it's barely noticeable.
The following was shot at two seconds. Again, there was not much change.
The next shot was a one-second exposure. Again, the difference is minuscule.
From now on, we will start to see a bit more difference in the water between each increase in shutter speed. Here's half a second.
Then at 1/8th of a second. There is even more detail in the water.
This is 1/15th of a second.
At 1/60th second, there is even more definition.
There comes a point when the shutter speed stops the action, and any further increase makes very little difference to the photo. In the following comparison, the photograph on the left was shot at 1/1,000 second and on the right, 1/3,200 second. They look very similar.
A Note About the Term Shutter Speed
Your camera's mechanical shutter is made from two curtains; after one opens, the other closes. They move at the same speed, but the time gap between them changes. I guess this is why Canon cameras rejected the otherwise universal "S" on the mode dial for Shutter Priority and used "Tv" for Time Value instead. Nevertheless, most of the photography world uses "shutter speed." A good mechanical shutter will give you speeds of 1/8,000 second or more.
With electronic or silent shutters, the curtains remain open, and the sensor is scanned electronically. Electronic shutters typically achieve much faster shutter speeds.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both, but those are for another article.
Do You Like Long Exposures?
Like with any approach in photography, there is subjectivity when it comes to long exposures. The ease with which shutters reach extremely high speeds—1/32,000 second on my camera—and extremely long exposures like the 7.6-minute shot above make such photography easier now than ever before.
Moreover, just because you can doesn't mean you should. I could have chosen a long exposure for the next photo; I do like the effect of long exposures on water because it minimizes the scene. But in this case, I preferred to see the movement of the water.
Long Exposures Are Not Just for Landscapes
Choosing different shutter speeds isn’t limited to landscape photography. As much as I revel in stopping the movement of birds in flight, setting the shutter speed to something much slower can bring interesting results.
A Quick Word About the Other Exposure Variables
Three other factors dictate your shutter speed: the aperture, the ISO setting, and the amount of light entering the camera from the lens.
To some extent, the availability of fast and long shutter speeds is dictated by the equipment's capabilities. The aperture is fixed between two parameters, and usually, the higher the quality of the lens, the broader the range of apertures available, especially with additional wider settings. The wider the available aperture, the faster shutter speed you can achieve.
Meanwhile, the ISO set on the camera also dictates the dynamic range and the likelihood of digital noise being introduced to the image. Some cameras can work at higher ISOs than others.
Finally, we have little control over the quantity of natural light other than reducing it by adding an ND filter. While I was shooting the demonstration pictures of the stream for this article, the light was constantly changing.
In Conclusion
Only experience will teach you what settings you need for your camera to achieve the results you want. Understanding exposure and how movements are shown or hidden by your shutter will help you achieve the results you want.
Thank you for yet another excellent article, Ivor.
One thing I would like to add:
In wildlife and bird photography, I very often meet people who think that they need to "keep the shutter speed up" in order to get sharp photos with long telephoto lenses. These people have misguided ideas about just how fast the shutter speed needs to be in order to get sharp shots.
They think that with a 400mm or 600mm lens, shooting handheld or on a monopod, that they need preposterously fast shutter speeds to get anything decent at all. Even at 600mm or 800mm, one can routinely get acceptable sharp photos at speeds of 1/30th of a second or 1/50th of a second, even when shooting handheld. This is assuming that one has some form of built-in image stabilization, and that the subject is still.
Yet, I often see people stop shooting when they can't get at least 1/400th or 1/500th of a second, because they think that they can't get a sharp photo at slower shutter speeds. Or, even worse, I see people cranking their ISO way up to unthinkable levels just so that they can get the 1/800th or 1/1000th of a second shutter speeds that they think are necessary.
At least 30% of all my wildlife photos are taken handheld at less than the "recommended" shutter speed of the "shutter speed / focal length" rule of thumb. That's the rule of thumb that states that if you are shooting at 400mm, you need at least 1/400th of a second to get an acceptably sharp photo, if you're shooting at 600mm you need at least 1/600th of a second, etc. This is terribly bad advice now that almost all of us are shooting with some form of stabilization in our lens, in our body, or in both.
Just to make a point, here are two frames from this past autumn; a photo of a Pika taken on a monopod at 1/20th of a second at 600mm, and a photo of an incredibly rare albino Whitetail buck taken totally freehand at 1/15 of a second at 348mm.
Y'all don't need anywhere near the shutter speed you think you need to get sharp wildlife photos. So you can keep shooting until deep into the later portion of the evening "blue hour".
Absolutely right, Tom. Thank you for the additional information. Those are cracking photos. I'm not familiar with animals on "that side of the pond," so it would be interesting to hear what they are and a little bit about them. Does that deer change its coat in the winter?
Thanks for responding, Ivor .... always much appreciated.
The Pika is a small member of the Lagomorph genus, which includes rabbits and hares. They are total vegetarians, live at very high elevation, and do not hibernate or go dormant. They live exclusively in rockslides, where there are thousand of rocks piled up that range in size from the size of a camera to the size of a car.
How in the world does a vegetarian live at high elevation, where there are bitterly cold temperatures and many feet of snow covering the ground from November thru May???
Well, during September, they gather thousands of mouthfuls of vegetation and place it on top of the rocks to dry, to cure it, the way farmers cure hay before they bale it. Once the vegetation is cured to the proper moisture content, the Pika then takes it and stashes it in the nooks and crannies under the rocks, making large piles of the cured hay. When the heavy snows come in late autumn, and throughout the winter, the Pika will live in the rocks, under many feet of snow, living off of the hay that it stored up for itself in September.
They are truly amazing little creatures with a most interesting lifecycle.
The first photo shows typical Pika habitat, and the 2nd photo shows a Pika gathering vegetation, ready to add it to her hay pile.
Whitetail deer do partially change their coat from the warm season to the cold season. But they do not change color .... at least not very much. Typical brown Whitetail Deer shed their long outer hairs in the late spring, to expose a new summer coat that is thinner and shorter and more reddish brown than their winter coat. Then in they autumn the grow back the long, thicker, grayish brown hairs that keep them well insulated during the winter.
The albino Whitetail Deer are quite rare - only one in every 25,000 to 30,000 is a true albino. Somehow I managed to find and photograph several such individuals this past autumn, and that was a memorable high point of my life.
The albinos shed their long, thick winter coat, making way for a thinner and cooler summer coat, but both coats are completely white, so they do not change color at all. Parts of their coats may get stained, such as their brow, due to repeatedly rubbing on vegetation that has sap and resin and various pigments in it.
Thank you so much for those long explanations. I feel educated! I had never heard of a pika before. White deer hold an important place in English mythology, and I think they do in other cultures too. That may be because of their rarity.
IBIS and VR help with camera motion, not much with subject motion. I would be quite cautious about shooting with shutter speeds so slow..
Cautious? Why? What do you actually lose if you take such shots and they are not sharp? Is there any consequence to giving it a try? NO! And this is why I do not understand the mindset that is so prevalent out there, of not even trying to take telephoto photos at slow shutter speeds ... especially when such attempts DO result in tack-sharp images a surprising amount of the time.
Excellent article Ivor. A very clear explanation.
Thank you Ruud. It is always nice to hear positive comments. However, looking at your excellent gallery, I assume you know all this stuff anyway! But I hope it helps some get to grips with it.
Thank you Ivor for your kind remark about my gallery. I think I know a bit about photography, but there’s always room to learn. There’s also a lot of bad advice on the web, so a nice and clear article stands out
I've always felt the term "shutter speed" is a misnomer that can often lead to confusion and I tend to avoid using the term. After all, it's been around 100 years since any new camera designs had shutters that actually moved at different "speeds" (mm/sec across the film gate) when different exposure times are selected.
That's why I tend to use "exposure time", "exposure duration", or "Tv (time value)". It's far less ambiguous saying "a longer exposure time" than saying "a lower shutter speed". If I'm set at 1/500 and I'm told I need a one-stop higher shutter speed, does that mean 1/1000 (which is "faster", has a higher denominator in the fraction but is actually a "lower" or "smaller" number) or 1/250 (which is a higher numerical value and a greater amount of time but has a "lower" denominator in the fraction)?
Too many less seasoned photographers think that 1/8000 is a "bigger" number than 1/100, even though 1/100 exposes for 80 times longer than 1/8000.
Just use "longer" or "shorter" exposure time and it's so much clearer to everyone what one means.
It's pretty much the same thing as saying "higher" or "lower" aperture. It's unclear if "higher" means a wider aperture with a lower f-number, or a larger f-number with a narrower aperture. Just use "wider" or "narrower" and it's so much more clear!
As I said in the article, I get your point about the term shutter speed. I do agree with it. However, even if it's technically incorrect, shutter speed is such a commonly used phrase that most people use it. I have found it's a term that most beginners are already familiar with, too, and it's easy to relate to. A fast shutter shoots past very quickly and a slow shutter dawdles!