Guide to shutter speeds?

JohnN

JohnN

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Morning all,

I was just trying out a tutorial here on capturing water drops (very good by the way) and it gave a shutter speed of 200 which struck me as slow but it worked perfectly.

In the past (only had the camera a couple of weeks so that term is relative!) I've shot at stupidly high speeds 1000+ to get pictures of my daughter splashing in mud

Is there a guide out there someone (or one here I missed with search) that says roughly what speeds you use for different things?

Such as birds in flight without blur, water drops, moving vehicles etc etc

Thanks all.

John
 
I guess there's a general guide somewhere but 'suitable' speeds will differ vastly depending on a number of factors.

In low light you will need a slower shutter speed to get the same 'correct' exposure than you would in bright conditions.

A large aperture lets in more light than a small one so if you're using larger apertures for shallower depth of focus you can use quicker shutter speeds than you would if you were using a small aperture to get deeper depth of focus. Is the depth of focus the key thing or the movement ?

The above two things depend a lot on the lens you're using so if you you find you can't get enough light (wide enough aperture) to capture what you want at the speed you need - you could adjust your ISO settings.

Increasing ISO makes your camera more sensitive to light but you may find you start to get (noise) grainy looking images depending on your camera.
 
dinners said:
I guess there's a general guide somewhere but 'suitable' speeds will differ vastly depending on a number of factors.
Click to expand...
I disagree. There are many situations where choice of shutter speed is paramount, and you have to juggle the aperture and ISO to fit.

Here's an example: waterfalls. What kind of shutter speed do you need to blur the water in a waterfall?

Obviously it depends to some extent on the speed at which the water is flowing. This illustration is of a fairly small waterfall, but the river was quite fast-flowing; I would imagine it's reasonably typical in so far as any waterfall can be typical. From left to right the shutter speeds are 1/30, 1/10, and 1/2. To my mind the one on the right is far better - which points to the need for a tripod (or other means of bracing the camera: I took these by sitting the camera on a bean bag on top of a guard railing).

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JohnN said:
...it gave a shutter speed of 200 which struck me as slow but it worked perfectly.

In the past (only had the camera a couple of weeks so that term is relative!) I've shot at stupidly high speeds 1000+ to get pictures of my daughter splashing in mud...
Click to expand...

The drop is 'frozen' by the short duration of the flash. Nothing to do with the shutter speed.

You could take a water drop photo (in a dark room) with a shutter of several seconds, and just light it with flash. It would be sharp as the ambient light wouldn't be enough to register on the final image. :thumbs:
 
Jayst84 said:
The drop is 'frozen' by the short duration of the flash. Nothing to do with the shutter speed.

You could take a water drop photo (in a dark room) with a shutter of several seconds, and just light it with flash. It would be sharp as the ambient light wouldn't be enough to register on the final image. :thumbs:
Click to expand...

This was my understanding too.
 
In this months Photography Monthly(Nov) there's a double page on this subject, most have been taken with a 2 second exposure with milk and they look stunning.
I suspect taken in darkness until the flash helps record the moment of splash.
 
Thanks all - it was a little more complex than I thought.

There really is a lot to learn!
 
Some of the subjects you mention will depend entirely on your skill as to what shutter speed you will need. If you are really good at panning you can get away with quite slow shutter speeds for birds in flight for example.

Other subjects the shutter speed needed will depend on the support used for the camera. For instance if you're using a tripod or hand-held.

A general rule some people use for hand-holding is to use a shutter speed equal or above the focal length being used. For example 1/200 for a 200mm lens or 1/500 for a 500mm

One of the few rules i have personally is to try and use at least 1/250 for any sitting/standing still animal i'm taking photos of that is constantly twitching/moving slightly. Below that i find i get a lot fewer keepers just because it's not stopping the subject movement.

JohnN said:
Morning all,

I was just trying out a tutorial here on capturing water drops (very good by the way) and it gave a shutter speed of 200 which struck me as slow but it worked perfectly.

In the past (only had the camera a couple of weeks so that term is relative!) I've shot at stupidly high speeds 1000+ to get pictures of my daughter splashing in mud

Is there a guide out there someone (or one here I missed with search) that says roughly what speeds you use for different things?

Such as birds in flight without blur, water drops, moving vehicles etc etc

Thanks all.

John
Click to expand...
 
Yes 250th is great to start with for most subjects ,Try looking at my site where I have a tutorial under the lessons heading , giving advice for all moving subjects
 
a general rule for handheld is not to go slower than 1/<focal length> that you're shooting with at the time, because of the 'amplification' of hand shake with tele lenses, whereas wide lenses you can usually 'get away' with the small effect of hand shake.
 
I think the problem is, from my point of view anyway, that most beginners think there are hard and fast rules regarding shutter speed and aperture etc, when there simply isn't. That's the point you see. The combination of shutter speed, aperture, Iso speed (nowadays with digital, with film this was "locked" in depending on what speed film you used) etc all determine the outcome of the exposure. There are basic guidelines for each depending on subject, various basic rules (all of which are broken on a regular basis) like "sunny 16" and so on, but at the end of the day to get the effect that you're after depends on the subject and what you are trying to achieve, trying to learn exact shutter speeds for given subjects/conditions off by heart will not advance your photography very far.

What you need to do is learn how to meter using your camera's system (or a light meter if you have one), understand how and why the meter works, so you can then learn how to override what it suggests if needed. You can learn the basic guidelines for each situation but don't be afraid to break the "rules" also.

For the water drop type shots things are slightly different to "normal" shooting conditions because you are using flash, which is a whole different ball game. The suggested shutter speed is "slow" because your camera needs to be able to "sync" with the flash burst and this is limited to 1/200 or 1/250.

The guideline on hand held shutter speeds is a good one and is easy to remember.

So, to reiterate, don't get hung up on trying to remember what's the best shutter speed to shoot "x" at, as there are a lot of factors which influence it. The key is learning how to meter, and make decisions from that.

Does that make sense? :shrug:
 
One other tutorial is this one by Strobist Loads of good stuff to look through .....
 
Sorry it took so long to reply - I've been visting relatives.

Anyway thanks all for the responses, starting with 250 and learning how to meter seem to be the way.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, there is a lot to learn!

Cheers
 
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