Shutter Speed Essay

Shutter speeds control the motion of an exposure.  While apart of the holy trinity of taking a picture with Aperture and ISO, shutter speed is what can freeze or blur an image.  My camera tops out at a shutter speed of 1/4000^th of a second. This is astronomically fast, but in certain conditions, such as shooting in the middle of the day with an extremely fast aperture like 1.4 a shutter speed this fast can be needed to control the light in an image.  Because direct sunlight combined with a large aperture allows so much light to come into the sensor of the camera it is important to limit how long the light has access. This is done with the shutter speed. 

The best way to see shutter speed in action is to use a water source like a fountain or waterfall to demonstrate how shutter speed can freeze motion.

 In the top image you can see the water is slightly blurred and creamy looking.  In the middle photo a shutter speed of 1/100^th is used. This freezes the water in place. In the final photo is a shutter speed of .3 seconds which makes the water blur because of the movement.

Obviously your shutter speed is pretty reliant upon the type of lighting that you have. If you are in bright sunshine you have a alot of options for your shutter speed.  You can go as fast or slow as you want. If you want a fast shutter speed to freeze action you can use a large aperture. If you want to use a slow shutter you would need to use a smaller aperture to counteract all the light coming in. Slow shutter speeds are great for capturing the movement of light.  For instance, when shooting fireworks a slow shutter speed is beneficial because you can capture the entire streak of a firework instead of the burst in the moment.   This can provide awesome streaks through the sky that not even the human eye can see.
Fast shutter speeds are preferable for use when shooting action and wanting to freeze that action. For instance, if you are at your childs soccer game and want to get some great shots of them, you don't want to settle for blurred images of them as they go running by. No you want them frozen in the moment.  To do this you would use a fast shutter speed.

Another side effect of shutter speed can be the need for a lens with image stabilization or not.  The general rule of thumb is that whatever focal length you are shooting at is at least the shutter speed you want to be using. For instance when shooting with a 135mm length you would want to use a shutter speed above 1/135. If you were to use a slower shutter speed the odds are you would have some camera shake in the picture unless you have a lens with Image Stabilization or are using a tripod. 

Shutter Speed

 1/80th

 1/200th

 1/320th

 1/13th

 1/13th

0 .3

1/100th

30seconds

47seconds

1/15th

13 seconds

Series of Images (Aperture)

All of these photos have a very high aperture meant to blur out the background and make the subject the center of attention in the photo.

Aperture(DoF)

Aperture is one of the holy trinity of taking photographs. Combined with Shutter speed and ISO, aperture is how we expose our images.  Aperture is referred to in f-stops.  The aperture however has nothing to do with your camera however (if it’s a DSLR) but on the lenses that you own. For instance I own one very fast (large aperture lens) a 50mm f 1.8. This is the lens I use primarily in the evening when I am trying to capture images where I can’t use a tripod. Having such a large(fast) aperture allows me to use a relatively high shutter speed even in less than ideal lighting without having to raise my ISO. This allows me to capture nice, well exposed images without having the grainy effect that takes place when using too high of an ISO. 

 This photo was taken with a 18-50 f2.8 lens.  I shot it at f2.8 in the dusk hours.  As you can see my daughter is in focus while the background is blurred together almost as if there was a backdrop behind her and not a bunch of trees.  This effect is referred to as bokeh. It’s something I love to strive for in portrait shots because it brings the subject into main view of the audience.  The person looking at the photo is drawn to her face rather than getting lost looking at the nature that is behind her. 

 In this photo I didn’t quite nail the depth of field as well as I would have liked. I capture this street performer and focused her rather well, however because of where the gentlemen next to her is located he is still in focus as well which I’m not happy about. In this instance I would have loved to have him blurred out much like the people in the background are so that she would be the center of attention in the photo. For this I would’ve needed some sort of tilt shift lens I believe, which allows you to blur things in a different way than a normal lens.

 Another feature of aperture is that it can produce lovely lighting effects in a photo. While the lines in the parking lot and the beams coming from the light are a result of a slow shutter speed, the star light effect coming from all the lights comes from the sweet spot aperture on my lens. I’ve found that on most of my lenses an aperture of f8-f12 will produce the awesome effects I refer to as star bursts.  I never see these effects when using a large aperture nor when I have a tiny one. I believe it has to do with this range being the optimal for lens sharpness. It captures everything terrifically. 

Lastly for a landscape photograph one would want to have a smaller aperture so that everything appears in focus, because in a landscape, the scenery is the object, and everything needs to be relatively similar so that all of the picture is admired.

This photo uses a small aperture to achieve a rather large depth of field I generally only use large apertures at night when I have a tripod with me. Because so much light is let in it can be hard to have a steady hand with a slow shutter speed.

My camera

http://www.techhive.com/product/442339/eos-rebel-t2i-black-slr-digital-camera-kit-w-18-55mm-lens.html 

I currently use a Canon t2i. it’s not my dream camera (HELLO Canon 5D Mark iii). It gets the job done.  It has a plethora of semi auto functions that I rarely use.  These range from full automatic to sports mode, portrait mode, night portrait and flash.  I am not a fan of my on camera flash at all. It always washes out my images and produces harsh flashes when I use it. 

I prefer to use my camera in manual mode simply because it allows me more control over my images. The t2i gives me the opportunity to shoot in raw, jpeg and smaller size jpegs. I almost always shoot in RAW because I like to have the ability to tinker with my pictures in post processing.  Who doesn’t love photoshop right?

My camera comes with a native ISO of 1-6400. It fails terribly anytime you go above 1600 however. I’m not a fan of noise in my images and the t2i with it’s cropped sensor doesn’t do a great job of handling the noise issue at 3200 or above.  I can range my shutter speed from Bulb mode, which allows me to hold the shutter for as long as I want up to 1/4000^th of a second.  The only time I’ve found to use the bulb mode is when I am light painting. Otherwise I haven’t come across a situation that warranted an extremely long shutter speed. 

Since my camera is a DSLR I have a few lenses that I use.  These range from a 50mm f1.8 prime lens which I use for dark shots. The High aperture(which equals a low number) allows me to use a semi fast shutter speed and a relatively low ISO.  I also have a Tamron -18-50mm f2.-8 Lens. This lens is terrific. It gives me great sharpness in my images and maintains a high aperture all the way through the focal range.  This is my everyday walking around lens. It worked well with the crop sensor and gives me a nice range for most situations.  Lastly I have a cheapy Tamron 70-300mm super zoom. This is a lens I only use when I’m shooting something from an extreme distance, or when I’m attempting to create some type of compression in my images.

The t2i has the ability to set a customized white balance. This can be helpful when shooting in mixed lighting. It allows me to have a white piece of paper, take a picture of it, then set my white balance to that piece of paper. This has helped a ton when I am in bad lighting and the preset white balance options on the camera just won’t do.  My camera also have the ability to shoot 1080p HD movie clips. However it tends to overheat when doing this which limits the length of clips I can shoot with it.   It also does a poor job focusing in video mode. Ultimately I’d prefer a slightly new camera with a better auto focusing system. I’m not at the skill level to be able to manual focus as well as I’d like. Because of this I rely on auto-focus, but the AF on the t2i does a terrible job in the dark, and the limited number of AF points on the camera can occasionally prove to be a challenge. All in all it is a nice camera, but I feel like I’ve outgrown it in some respects and look forward to experiencing a Full Frame camera and all it encompasses.