Shutter Speeds

 The Shutter Speed controls the length of time that light passing through the lens aperture reaches the film.Most cameras have a range of shutter speeds ranging from fractions of a seconds to several seconds or even minutes. These are set via a shutter dial. The camera I used rages from 1/4000 seconds to 30 seconds. Fast shutter speeds are required when photographing moving objects as if you use a shutter speed that is too slow, the image will become blurred. When photographing static images such as landscapes, slow shutter speeds are required to get as much detail as possible into the photo. The minimum shutter speed that should be used without a tripod is 1/60 seconds to avoid camera shake.

For this photograph I set a slow shutter speed so that the camera would capture every movement of the light in slow motion in order to capture this star shape of light. I also did this with a darkened background so that the camera was focused on capturing the light.

Here, I used a fast shutter speed to enable my camera to capture he motion of a moving object, in this case the boy, ad turn it into a still image. These photos show different stages of movement from jumping from a small height onto the floor, the fast shutter speed stops the motion becoming just a blur.