Hi, and welcome to the project for Shutter Speed.

So let’s say you have a shutter speed of 1/1000th of a second, what that means is that if you take a picture of something it is going to freeze whatever that object is. It is also going to let in less light to the sensor and that means you will have to take that photo in a bright situation or increase your ISO to make your sensor more sensitive to light.

If you have a shutter speed that is long it is going to slow motion and you will see a blurry subject. It is going to let in more light to the camera sensor and is helpful in low-light situations. If you use a tripod the blur will be minimized. Hand holding will introduce what is called camera shake and distract from the intentionally blurred subject.

The project for this class is to use your shutter speed to capture motion. To freeze a fast-moving object or show blur.

The choice is yours and please share your results in the class project section. I have shared mine so you can be inspired by what I choose to shoot.

Here are the steps you need to create your project.

Remember that ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speed are married together because they all (combined) control how your camera will see light.

You freeze motion with your shutter speed by using a higher ISO 1600, 3200, 6400 - to let in more light and a fast shutter speed like 1/1000th.

You can use an aperture of F 4.5 or F 5.6.

You will need to take several exposures to capture that motion. The pros call it ‘pray and spray’. Think about how you hear the shutters go at a sporting event.

If you want to capture blur, slow your shutter speed and lower your ISO. Try an ISO of 400 or 800, the same aperture as before F 4.5 or F 5.6 and a much slower shutter speed. Try 1/15 or slower 1/30 or even 1 second. The longer your shutter is open the more blur you will capture.

Use a tripod or stable surface to avoid camera shake. Camera shake will distract from your subject. A tripod stabilizes your camera so just your subject is blurry - not the whole frame if you are hand-holding your camera.

So get out there and practice. While you are practicing notice how the exposure triangle is working.

One setting adjustment affects the others and always affects the amount of light you are letting into your camera’s sensor.

A helpful tip is to record your settings or take a look at the metadata of your images to see what is changing and how it affect the results in your photos.

I can’t wait to see what you are going to create.

Bartosz Trawnik

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