If you’ve read the Beginner’s Guide: Mastering Exposure, you now know that shutter speed is the amount of time the camera shutter opens up before closing again, allowing a precise amount of light to reach the camera sensor. But other than for proper exposure of the scene, shutter speed can be used for creative purposes!

Setting things in motion

Shutter speed is commonly used for creating motion. By using a slower shutter speed, movements of your subject will show up as a blur, depicting motion. Incorporating motion can add variety to your pictures and helps tell a better story, especially for things like sports where the movement and energy are what it is all about.

© John Steven Fernandez

In the above photo, the motion is done using a technique called panning. It is done by using a slower shutter speed, and tracking the subject along its path of motion. The result is a nice motion blur of the background, while the subject remains relatively sharp. In this case, you can see motion in the wheels as well. This is an excellent example of how motion can create a stronger image.

Imagine the same car shot with a fast shutter speed. The background would be frozen in place, and the wheels would be stationary. Wouldn’t it look like a parked car?

Stopping time

The opposite works too. By using a faster shutter speed to freeze your subject, you can do creative stuffs like making people float or capturing fast-moving objects like water splashes; Stuffs that are normally too fast for human eyes to see clearly.

Zoom burst

This effect is done by using a slow shutter speed, then zooming the lens while the shutter is open. This is best done with a zoom lens that has a manual zoom ring. The result is blurred streaks emanating from the center of the photo.

© josh.liba

Experiment!

Different subjects move at different speed, so there are no fixed shutter speeds for achieving the above effects. As a guideline, 1/30 is good for panning shots of subjects moving slower than 30 miles per hour (48km/h), 1/60 is good for panning shots of faster subjects, and high speeds like 1/4000 is good for freezing fast subjects like water splashes. Keep experimenting!