Photography Class by Camilla Lesson 2

[Camilla and Darwin]

Okay, this is going to be a fun one I think, and we will be learning together because I haven't used this mode very much. 

 

Shutter Priority mode! On a Canon camera, this is "TV", and on Nikon and Olympus, I believe it is "S"

 

Shutter priority mode allows you to set your shutter speed and adjusts the other settings to match. If you remember from the previous discussion, shutter speed is like your eyelid. It controls how long the shutter is open, therefore how much light is let in. If you want to freeze action, you will want the shutter to open and close very quickly, if you want to capture a blur or lots of light, keep your shutter open longer. Here are some examples. 

 

A LONG shutter speed of 10 full seconds. For reference, you will usually be shooting at faster than 1/60th of a second during the daytime. I wanted to have the shutter open for a long time to capture all the lights from the passing cars. 

 

The following photos were shot with a relatively long shutter speed. This was because there was little light available so in order to let in more light I needed to slow that shutter down. These were shot at below 1/60sec. Now, I would recommend that if you are shooting below 1/80th a second, you use a tripod, otherwise camera shake will be a problem for you.

 

 

Now this photo was shoot at a very fast shutter speed of 1/2000sec. I wanted the shutter to open and close super fast, so that I could freeze the motion of this water drop. 

 

 

 

These were all using relatively high shutter speeds as well, over 1/500sec, two were at 1/1000 sec

 

 

So now that you have seen these examples of higher and lower shutter speeds, I want you to go out and experiment. Keep it simple. Don't worry about how blurred your background is for now. Set your camera to shutter priority mode, and go experiment with different shutter speeds. Try to freeze action, and try to take a lower light photo with a slower shutter speed (perhaps a candle in the dark?). Experiment and see what results you get. The idea here is to see what happens when you change your shutter speed. Try shooting in different situations.A running doodle, a car passing by, dripping water, a river or waterfall, anything. I want you to all focus on capturing movement. You are welcome to experiment with how this affects lighting as well, but start with a focus on action. Get a blurred shot, get a frozen shot. I would recommend setting your ISO to Auto for this assignment, so you can focus on changing your shutter settings alone.

 

Good luck!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

I hope practicing helps me, because I find the shutter speed the most confusing of all. Wish me luck!

[Camilla and Darwin]

Good luck, go out and experiment, ask questions, we will all learn together. :-)

[F, Calla & Luca]

Shutter speed is easy, not that I can change it without trial and error. So today I will look up how to do that, one of the good things about these lessons. But it changes nothing except how long the shutter stays open, which depending how you camera is set up, could change the ISO, since the camera's "brain" wants a certain amount of light. With a long shutter speed you can get blurriness if your object moves, say a dog, or from the shakiness of your own hands. So for really long shutter speed your camera should be on a tripod or handy immoveable object.

[Nancie & Gracie Doodle]

The good thing Laurie is that when you are shooting in Shutter Priority you only have to worry about getting the shutter speed right.  The Aperture automatically adjusts to the shutter speed you chose.  That is one less thing to worry about.  Also the ISO adjusts as well.  Not sure about the White Balance but that doesn't matter much.  You can always put it on Auto WB.

[Sue & Lily Grace]

I love your photos.  You know a lot of very photogenic people.  These are great.  

[Camilla and Darwin]

I know, my siblings are so lovely aren't they? :-)

[F, Calla & Luca]

I checked my manual. If I were to use S priority, the camera  automatically adjusts the aperture to compensate for the light, not at all what I would want for this lesson. So obviously I would have to go to manual mode and set everything and then just change the shutter speed. For those of you with other kinds of cameras you need to check how that works for you.

[Camilla and Darwin]

Shutter Priority WILL allow you to alter the way the action looks in your photos, whether frozen or blurred. The camera will compensate to keep the image from being black or way blown out, but you WILL get the blur or the frozen action. Does that make sense?

Basically, go ahead and experiment. The camera will automatically keep your image properly exposed, but the action will look different based on your shutter setting. That is the point of Shutter Priority

[F, Calla & Luca]

Absolutely. I do understand the principles : ) But that is not the only reason to alter shutter speed. One is to see the difference in low light situations such as night photography.
It is hard to compare action photos unless you have something constantly moving like a stream. But of course we all have a a faucet. And a counter could be a fine tripod.

[Sue & Lily Grace]

Great idea. Can't wait for rain - we just don't get any until July. LOL

[Camilla and Darwin]

Yes, but the assignment is really just to look at different types of action shots, don't want to confuse the issue just yet with more. We'll do more in depth stuff later, and in manual. You don't have to compare the same action photo with different settings. But all different types like the ones I posted above will still give a good idea of what Shutter priority can do.

[F, Calla & Luca]

You did not make it very clear, very clear, at least not to me, that this was mainly about action. Your examples are about that, though. Luckily I haven't much of anything yet.