Shutter Speeds...

Shutter speed is the term given for the amount of time the shutter stays open allowing light to pass through to the film or digital sensor... The shutter speeds listed below are for whole stops, each one is approximately half the speed of the previous one, only allowing 1/2 as much light to reach the film/sensor as its predecessor... The exception being ‘Bulb’ so I will deal with that first...

The Bulb feature allows the shutter to stay open as long as the shutter button or cable release is kept pressed...

Full second shutter speeds are usually followed by a ” in a camera’s viewfinder or display panel so they don’t get mixed up with the fractions of a second... Fractions of a second are usually shown as plain numbers in the viewfinder or display panel without the prefix of 1/ so that’s the way I will show them...

Full seconds... 30”, 15”, 8”, 4”, 2”, 1”

Fractions of a second... 2, 4, 8, 15, 30, 60, 125, 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000 and 8000...

Every time you halve the amount of time the shutter is open you are only allowing half the previous amount of light to reach the film/sensor of the previous shutter speed, this is also known as stopping down because you are stopping down the amount of light reaching the film/sensor... This of course works in the opposite way also, every time you double the amount of time the shutter is open you allow twice as much light to reach the film/sensor as the previous shutter speed, this is also known as opening up because you are effectively opening the shutter up for a longer period of time allowing more light in...

Your camera may or may not have all these shutter speeds available but it might allow the shutter speeds to be incremented in 1/2 or 1/3 stops (see your camera manual)...

There are a few other questions you might want answers to...

1... When would I use the bulb feature?...

2... What are the advantages of using a fast shutter speed?...

3... What would I use a slow shutter speed for?...


Here are some answers...

1... The bulb feature is mainly used for very long exposures in very dim light for example, night scenes when there is only moonlight available as your light source, or for making multiple images on one frame like bursts of fireworks or special effects...

2... Fast shutter speeds allow you to freeze action and are extremely useful in sports photography, or when photographing fast moving animals in nature photography... The faster the shutter speed you can achieve in low light conditions the less chance there is of camera shake... Fast shutter speeds also allow you to use wider apertures in portraiture to blur the background...

3... Slow shutter speeds can be used to record light trails left by cars at night, or to give maximum depth of field in an image in macro photography and landscapes, or allow some blurring of an object, waterfall, or person, to portray movement...

Note:...A good solid tripod and a cable release are essential when using slow shutter speeds...
Tip... If you don’t have a cable release use the cameras self timer function if it has one...