Description and examples of shutter speed in photography

The shutter speed on a camera indicates how long you require the shutter to stay open whilst you take a photograph. These are measured in fractions of seconds and seconds, e.g 1/2000 (being a very fast shutter speed) all the way down to 1/30 (being a very slow shutter speed).
Although the most commonly used shutter speeds go from 1/500 to 1/60 it does very much depend on what the subject is in your image and below are some examples of what has been used in particular shots.

Very fast shutter speed

Here is an image of seagulls that was taken which shows the birds in motion. To capture the birds without the wings being blurred the photographer has used a very fast shutter speed of 1/750.

Moderately fast shutter speed

Below is an example of where the photographer has used a slower shutter speed of 1/180 than previously used for the seagulls. This is because there was no wind and they did not want the image to be blurry.



Slow shutter speed

Here the photographer wanted to achieve a different look in the photograph. They wanted to make the running water appear blurry so the shutter speed was set at 1/6 of a second. To ensure that the greenery in the background of the image didnt look blurry as well they had to use a tripod. This is an effect that I would like to experiment with in my images.

Very slow shutter speed

This photograph was taken with a tripod and was an 8 second exposure. This image was taken at night and shows the moving cars as blurs which has a really nice effect. Because the shutter speed was very low it meant that the photographer could catch the cars passing completely.



Looking at how shutter speed works its really interesting to see how you can create different effects in your images depending on what the subject is. I think for my first theme - Nature - I would probably be using a slower shutter speed.