What Is Shutter Speed in Photography

Introduction to the article :- Hello friends, today we are going to read another topic of photography basic. We are following the series called “Learn Photography Basic” through this blog website in which we have discussed in detail above two topics “What is Photography? and its types” and “What Is Aperture & its role in Photography“. Are. And today also following this series, we will understand another new topic through this article named “What Is Shutter Speed in Photography”.

To know about shutter speed in detail read this article carefully. I hope you like this article of today. If you get any kind of knowledge from this article, then you should also share it with your friends. If you see any kind of deficiency, then you can send your query to us through the comment below.

What Is Shutter Speed in Photography

Shutter speed is one of the three important settings in photography, the other two being aperture and ISO. Because if you do not know about these basic settings then you cannot become a good photographer. With shutter speed, you can control the brightness of the photo, blurring Motion effect and Freezing action effect to the photo. And through today’s article, we will get information about shutter speed with details.

The camera shutter remains closed until the camera is fired, and when the camera is fired, this shutter opens completely, and transmits sunlight and light to the sensor through the camera lens. And when the sensor collects enough light, immediately after that the shutter closes and the light also does not reach the sensor.

Shutter Speed

Hearing the shutter speed, a picture of the shutter of the shop would be forming in your mind. And interestingly, there is also a shutter in the camera, which is attached before the sensor of the camera.

To understand with an example, we can go inside any shop only when the shutter of the shop is open. And we can do this work only for a period of time because the shop is open from 9 am to 6 pm only. Because the shutter of the shop closes at 6 o’clock so we cannot go to the shop at 7 o’clock.

On the other hand, the shutter of the camera is for the light falling in the lens. When the shutter is open, light can reach the sensor of the camera. But when the shutter is closed, the light cannot reach the sensor of the camera. Hope you have understood about camera shutter.

What Is Shutter Speed

Now we understand what is shutter speed.
The time period for which the camera shutter opens is called shutter speed. Let us understand this also with an example.

As we have seen in the above example that the shutter of a shop opens at 9 am and closes at 6 pm. So we can say that the shutter speed of the shop is 9 hours.
And on the other hand, for how many time off periods the shutter of the camera is open, we call this time interval as shutter speed. And this interval is of milliseconds. Like 1/125 etc.

Open and close this shutter we can control with the button in the camera. Which we know as “shutter” or “shutter button”.

Long and Short Shutter Speed

We define shutter speed in two ways, Long Shutter Speed (also known as Slow Shutter Speed) and the opposite, Short Shutter Speed (Fast Shutter Speed).

Now let us try to understand that, out of these two types of shutter speed, which one should be used where and why.

long shutter speed

When you use a long shutter speed it means your sensor will collect light for a longer period of time. The first effect is that it gives a motion blur effect to the photo. When you click a photo of a moving subject using a long shutter speed, you will see a blur in the direction of the subject’s motion in the photo. This type of effect is used in car and motorbike advertisements. And you will get to see such effects in action movies too.

There is a moving subject in the photo given below, which we have clicked using long shutter speed.

Short Shutter Speed

On the other hand, short Shutter Speed (Also Known as Fast Shutter Speed). It works exactly opposite to long shutter speed. This gives us the freeze motion effect. When we use short shutter speed, the sensor has very less time to collect light. Due to which it eliminates motion, in this way you can also freeze fast moving subjects (flying birds, fast moving car fast moving bike etc.). And this photo will be absolutely clear.

In the photo below you can see how we can freeze a fast moving subject using short shutter speed.

All this we can control only through a shutter speed. So now you can understand the importance of shutter speed in photography.

How to Measure Shutter Speed

Now the matter arises that how can we measure the shutter speed?
Simply we measure shutter speed in seconds of fractions. For example, if shutter speed is 1/4, then it means that the shutter will be open for a time equal to the time of 4th part of 1 second. In the second example, if we set the shutter speed to 1/125, it means that the camera shutter will be open for a time equal to 125th of a second.

Most modern DSLRs and mirrorless cameras can handle 1/4000th of seconds shutter speed, which is a fastest shutter speed. While some can handle 1/8000th Of a Seconds and Faster than this.

And let’s talk about long shutter speed, most modern DSLRs and mirrorless cameras can handle long shutter speed up to 30 seconds.

How Shutter Speed Affects On Exposure

Shutter speed also affects exposure, which is linked to the brightness of the photo. When you use a long shutter speed, your camera sensor collects more light, resulting in a brighter photo.

Talking about the other aspect, when we talk about fast shutter speed, in such a situation, less light is collected near the camera sensor, as a result of which the photo comes out a bit black.

However, shutter speed is not the only variable that affects the brightness of the image. Rather Aperture and ISO can also be the reason for this. But without changing the ISO and Aperture or other settings, you can click the photo with a good lighting only with the shutter speed.

When you keep trying it continuously, shutter speed can prove to be an important tool in controlling the brightness of the photo. When you see that your shoot is in sunny day then you have to use minimum shutter speed. And when you are shooting in a dark place, then you have to use long shutter speed only. So that your camera sensor can collect maximum light.

Fast ,Slow and Long Shutter Speed

We will use fast shutter speed when we want to freeze the motion subject. If you do photography of birds then you should always keep shutter speed 1/1000th second or more. While for common motion subject photography, you can do 1/200th second or 1/100th second or even longer when you want to create a motion blur effect.

Generally long shutter speed is more than 1 second, so it is very important to have a tripod for such a shoot, as a result of which you will not see any kind of shake in the photo. Where you are shooting in low light or at night, then you have to keep the shutter speed low. When you capture a subject that is moving with long shutter speed, then you will get to see a lot of blurry effect in this photo.

Speeds from 1/100th second to 1 second are considered low shutter speeds. When you shoot with this shutter speed without a tripod, you will get to see the shake in the photo.

How To Set Shutter Speed

The most important thing, now we will see how we can set the shutter speed.

Normally when we put the camera in auto mode, the camera automatically handles the shutter speed without any input from you as well as it’s ISO and Aperture. But you can also set it manually.

When you suck the shutter speed of your camera on “Shutter Priority” mode, the camera automatically sets the aperture.
When you set the camera to “Manual” mode, you can set the shutter speed and aperture yourself.

Using both of these, you can set the ISO manually as well as automatically.