This week’s photo study is an exploration of shutter speed. Shutter speed, a basic photographic component, is defined as the amount of time your camera allows light to enter your camera. The variables of a scene being photographed together with the size of aperture and the shutter speed have the potential to create unique images.
A fast shutter speed will freeze moving objects.
While fast shutter speeds create crisp and sharp images, slow shutter speeds — open for half a second or longer – extends the length of time light is entering your camera. This light is continuously being influenced by the motion within the scene and thus creating blurry, foggy, silky, or milky elements within an image.
The shutter speed in panning photography can be as low as 1/20 or as fast as 1/125. The trick is to match the speed of the subject with your speed of panning. The inclusion of motion blur within street photography is often created with a high aperture setting, a low as possible ISO, and a low shutter speed.
The images below are examples of various shutter speeds with the same aperture and ISO settings.
Thank you for taking the time to visit. I hope you enjoy Ted Forbes’ discussion of shutter speed and his nighttime images. Would love to hear your thoughts and see your creative work.
a meditative journey 
These are wonderful, Brenda. I must go out and play!
Thank you Loisajay. Play is a really good idea!
Yay! My comment posted. I have had many go to spam folders–what?! Your lessons have been wonderful–but my comments would not stick!
Comments going to spam…an example of a new world problem which seemingly just happens and throws me into a tizzy
Beautiful imagery, combined with a concise and easily read commentary. Always a good thing to keep on a nodding relationship with the fundamental elements of photography. I like the quiet dynamism of the trees in the water.
Jeff, what is a “nodding relationship”?
I used to have fun with slow shutter speeds, and sometimes panning, here are some examples
https://suejudd.com/2016/07/30/pick-a-word-pursuit/
https://suejudd.com/2016/10/15/six-word-saturday-an-attempt-to-convey-the-motion/
Thanks for visiting and sharing your past shutter speed images. The panning images are great…I especially like the first one…great perspective. Must have taken some experimentation. Your motion blur images are great especially since there is a nice contrast between sharp and blur. Was these created via hand-held camera?
All these were handheld, Brenda- I very rarely use a tripod
Wow! Steady hands
Well, they aren’t very good these days, so I can only do a little at a time….but image stabilisation in the camera helps!
I hope you are okay.
Oh, I’m OK, thanks….just not the woman I was!
Thanks for sharing this, the photo’s look great. I like the way the water looks in the last one.
Thank you for stopping by and leaving a comment. It is interesting to compare different shutter speeds.
Reblogged this on Die Erste Eslarner Zeitung – Aus und über Eslarn, sowie die bayerisch-tschechische Region!.
The motion blur shots are great! I like all three water flow captures. 🙂
Thanks for visiting Amy and sharing your experience. Encourages me to continue on.
Great post Brenda…and yes.. playing is the correct word when you are with a camera. And you played well here! 🙂
Thanks…play is freeing.
Thank you for this post. I love to take pictures, and to learn to do it better.
Thank you for visiting. It is my hope that as I learn more about photography I will meet others who enjoy photography and we also share our learning.
Great post, Brenda. Not sure if you have figured out my working flow yet… I read it once and I think about it and I take photos and then come back to read it again. Hopefully by reading it before and after shooting, I will be able to keep what I learned a little longer.
I don’t see too much difference between 1/20 and 1/30. Do you? Very interesting.
Have a great day.
I think I missed this comment. I like your flow especially since coming back to reading helps me understand ideas that are new. Comparing the shutter speeds of river images…same river in constant change may not be ideal subjects. Yet, it seems to me as I revisit the images that the whites may be slightly different. Sorry I missed this post.
Not a problem, Brenda. So many things to keep up… I totally understand. 😉
Have a great day.
If you like retouching, then you will be interested to see this – Free Lightroom presets for portraits collection http://fixthephoto.com/free-lightroom-presets-for-portraits
I hope this will help you!
Thank you. I’ve been thinking about using Lightroom…this may just be the door that invites me in. 🙂
Great photos
Thank you 😊