Explai ned PHOTOGRAPHING ACTION
Controlling your shutter speed and how it affects the other camera settings, and you’ll be on the way to shooting fast-moving objects the way you want Shutter Priority is a good mode when you’re and you’ll rob the image of any sense of speed. shooting active subjects. It enables you to ‘lock Often, a better option is to choose a slower in’ a suitable shutter speed and ensure you get shutter speed, then use a panning technique. sharp results. If the light changes, the camera The trick here is to move the camera and will choose a different aperture and, if you have track the subject, so it stays more or less in the Auto ISO selected, a different ISO setting. same place within the frame and is rendered
But what is a ‘suitable’ shutter speed? Too sharply, while the fast-moving background is slow, and the subject will be blurred; too fast captured as a blur.
If the camera moves during the exposure – even by a small amount – this movement may register in the picture. The rule of thumb for sharp handheld results is to make sure the shutter speed doesn’t dip below the equivalent focal length of the lens, expressed as a fraction. So if you’re using a 20mm lens, you should be able to take sharp pictures at shutter speeds at 1/20 second or faster. Switch to a 400mm lens, and the shutter speed should be no slower than 1/400 second.
If you’re shooting with a camera with a smaller APS-C sensor, factor in the focal length crop factor. A 400mm lens on a Canon 1200D (crop factor, 1.6) or Nikon D3300 (1.5) would need to be used at around 1/640 second.
Your mileage may vary when it comes to getting razor-sharp results at these recommended minimum speeds. It pays to err on the side of caution and select a shutter speed that’s faster than suggested.
Yes it does. The latest imagestabilised lenses can help you take sharp pictures at shutter speeds up to four stops slower than suggested for handheld photography. A stabilised 500mm lens on a full-frame camera may give sharp results at shutter speeds as slow as 1/30 second, although the size and weight of a telephoto lens like this can make it tricky to do so: image stabilisation only corrects for vibrations rather than full-on wobbles. Also bear in mind that an image-stabilised lens or camera can only reduce the effects of When you’re taking pictures without the support of a tripod, you need to consider the shutter speed, not just in terms of freezing subject movement but also in terms of concealing the effects of camera shake. It’s easy to neglect the shutter speed when you’re shooting in Aperture Priority mode, but it can make the difference between a keeper and an image destined for the trash.
Use the reciprocal of the focal length as a guide – so if you’re using a 500mm lens, aim for a minimum of 1/500 sec.
If you’ve got a teleconverter attached to the lens, take this into account when working out the equivalent focal length. Do the same with a crop-sensor camera.
You can get sharp results at slower shutter speeds using image stabilisation, if the subject isn’t moving. camera shake, and has no effect on the speed of a moving subject.
Shutter Priority mode enables you to set the shutter speed while the camera automatically sets a corresponding aperture for a ‘correct’ exposure. The only trouble is that lenses have a limited range of apertures, so if you dial in a shutter speed that requires a larger aperture than is available, you risk the picture being too dark (underexposed).
The answer here is to increase the ISO, which amplifies the signal and brings back the brightness. The downside to this is that picture quality gradually decreases as the ISO ‘volume’ is turned up, but we’ll be looking at ways you can tackle this next issue…