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!

How cameras record an image

In layman terms (I try as much as possible to use non-technical terms to explain stuffs on this blog), cameras take photos by capturing light onto their sensors. Normally, light don’t reach the sensor until you depress the shutter release. As you depress the shutter release, the “door”, that is the shutter, opens up. And there is light!

Simple? You bet. But what controls the amount of light reaching the sensor before the shutter closes again? They are none other than the big three, aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Understanding how they control the amount of light is the key to mastering exposure.

Aperture is located in the camera lens and is simply an opening that determines how much light passes through the lens. Making it bigger naturally lets more light in, and smaller means less light. But the numbering system used can be confusing, the smaller the number, the bigger the opening.

Shutter speed is the amount of time the shutter opens up before closing again. In typical conditions, the speed is in fractions of a second. Hence, you usually see figures like 1/80 or 1/200 on your camera.

ISO is the sensitivity of your sensor. The higher you set it, the more sensitivity your sensor is to light, but at the expense of visible “noise” on your resulting image.

Taking a photo is very much like suntanning

You must be wondering why there’s a photo of this hot pair of legs up there. I’m going to use my favorite analogy to explain aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Suntanning.

Suntanning is really very much like taking a photo. You don’t want to get sunburnt, and neither do you want to waste your time not getting any tan. It has to be just nice. Like a photo, more often than not, you want the exposure to be just nice. Now, imagine ISO as the sensitivity of your body to tanning. That is, if you are someone who doesn’t tan easily, you have low ISO. And imagine aperture as the SPF of your favorite sunscreen lotion (my favorite is Banana Boat). The lower the SPF, the faster you will risk getting sunburn. Lastly, imagine shutter speed as simply the amount of time you spend basking under the sun.

So, to get perfect exposure is simply a matter of adjusting your ISO (skin’s sensitivity, which is unfortunately not adjustable) to an appropriate setting, choosing a reasonable aperture (lotion’s SPF), and picking the correct shutter speed (amount of time in the sun).

There are various other ways to explain, but I find suntanning the most helpful. Many people gets confused by the aperture numbering system, so with the suntan analogy, just remember that the number can be liken to the sunscreen’s SPF. That is, the higher the number, the less light will reach your camera’s sensor.

Go ahead, experiment!

Other than just exposure, each of the three settings have its own unique impact to other aspects of the resulting picture. They can open up various creative opportunities and we will discuss about them in another post very soon. But right now, go out and shoot! With digital technology, there’s really no harm in experimenting. Armed with your new knowledge, go out and snap away.

For those of you who are already masters of exposure, do share with us your tips and tricks to exposure in the comment box below.