What Is Shutter Speed?

If you enjoy playing with your camera, you have probably wanted to know more about it. Cameras can sure be tricky, with all the different settings and whatnot, but once you start to understand all these different settings, you can use your camera more effectively. Which, of course, allows you to enjoy your camera more! Shutter speed is one setting that a photographer is most likely to adjust. Shutter speed is an easy concept to understand, even for an amateur photographer. Shutter speed is the amount of time the shutter remains "open" during a picture, and is listed in fractions of a second. So, for instance, if your camera is set on a shutter speed of 1/500, the shutter will remain open for one five-hundredth of a second. The shutter remains open for a full second when the shutter speed is set at 1. Of course, the longer the shutter is open, the more light is allowed in. So if you are in a dark place, you might want to consider keeping the shutter open longer. At the same time, however, the longer the shutter is open, the more chance it has of shaking. This is how you get pictures that are blurry. Virtually no human hand is capable of keeping the camera absolutely steady for a full second (if you don't believe it, test it out yourself). You will need to use a tripod or set the camera on something if you plan to set the shutter speed at 1, or even at 1/2 or as fast as 1/8. Conversely, if you want to let in less light, you can drop the shutter speed way down - 1/500, or even 1/1000. Of course, sometimes neither the light nor the steadiness are the main things you want to focus on. Sometimes, your only true concern might be as simple as getting a cool shot. You can do a lot of really neat things with shutter speed. For instance, you can make the water of a waterfall look perfectly still with a fast shutter speed. On the other hand, you can capture the water's movement using a slower shutter speed. You can also use lights for cool effects with shutter speed. For instance: Setting a slow shutter speed in a dark room, with someone moving a light around, will capture the movement of the light. You could even capture the entire thing if the person with the light "writes a word" in the air with the light. There are a lot of cool things you can do once you learn how to use shutter speed; and as you learn more cool things, you will enjoy your camera even more. @@ADSENSE@@.