Basics about Photography Part 2: Shutter Speed

In my last post I tried to explain one of the 3 fundaments in photography, the aperture. In this posts I'll write about one more important principle: Shutter Speed.

Shutter Speed
The shutter speed tells you how fast the lens will open, and that has 2 functions.

First of all the shutter speed changes the expression of a moving subject.

• Faster SS: Stop action (for example 1/3200 second)
• Slow SS: Blur motion (for example 30 seconds)

Look at the examples:

Fast SS: Captured action	Slow SS: Blur motion

The Shutter speed 1/ 3200s means that if you divide 1 second in 3200 pieces, then your camera will take a shot in just 1 of them. This is very fast and it means that your camera will capture the action, a "frozen moment"or very fast movement with all the details on it. The slow shutter speed means that the lens will be open for a quite longer time. Thanks to that, you will be able to capture the movement in the blur motion.

Secondly, shutter speed effects an amount of light coming through the camera.

• Faster SS: Less light
• Slow SS: More light

In order to understand it, imagine that you are in the totally dark room with no sours of light. However on the other side there is a totally bright room. Let's say someone opens the door to your dark room, but extremely quickly. You are not going to get much light inside. That represents fast SS with less light. In the contrast, let's say someone opens the door for 30 seconds or more. Consequently you will get quite a lot of light in. That represents slow SS with more light.

As a tip I can tell you that with very slow SS you wouldn't be able to take an unmoved picture, an less you will have a tripod, or at least your camera will be in a stable position.

Once again no theory is good enough if you don't practice, so just try it and have fun.

In the next post I will write few stuff on what is ISO.