Digital Photography Tip #003 - Shutter Priority

Shutter Priority, what and why? Well the what is control over the length of time your shutter stays open. Why? To blur or stop movement basically. A quick shutter speed will freeze motion in your photo and a slow shutter speed will blur that motion. When would you need to use these? Picture your favorite sport. For me let's use waterskiing. A quick shutter speed will freeze the subject in mid air, or just as he is wiping out. Now picture a water fall. A slow shutter speed will streak the water giving it a silky look.

Have a look at these examples.


Here you can clearly see how the shutter speed of 1/500 seconds has frozen the falling skier in place. You can see each water drop frozen in mid air. This is a stop action shot and will forever hold him in place.


In this photo of a small water fall along the highway by Grande Cache, Alberta you can see how a slow shutter speed of 1/4 seconds has streaked the falling water creating a nice silky effect. For me, this is how I prefer to see pictures of waterfalls. The faster shutter speed freezes the water droplets in place and makes it look chunky. But that is just my opinion.



A slower shutter speed can also be used in conjunction with panning. A technique where you pan along with the subject as it passes by you. You can keep the subject sharp while blurring the background giving the sense of motion. In this example I used a shutter speed of 1/40 seconds to blur the background of the race car moving at about 120km per hour.

Chris.