Live Photography Courses near you | THE PHOTO ACADEMY

Capturing movement is an important skill to have. If you want to ‘freeze’ a fast moving object, or make your images more dynamic, you need to know about the shutter speed.

Like aperture and sensitivity, shutter speed affects the exposure of an image by bringing more or less light to the sensor.

The shutter controls the passage of light, and remains open for the necessary amount of time for a good exposure of the image. While only a few fractions of a second will be needed to expose an image of a bright subject, several seconds (or even minutes) will be required for a dark subject.

Beyond the influence on the exposure, the shutter speed will also have a significant effect on the aesthetics of the image. A slow shutter speed will allow one to record the movements of a subject in the form of a blurred “trail”. A fast shutter speed, on the other hand, will freeze a moving subject precisely and clearly.

Here are some examples of images whose aesthetics depend mainly on the shutter speed used: