SHUTTER SPEEDS
Learn how to control your shutter speed for different types of shots, from freezing movement to capturing blur
Uncover better photo ops
leaving the car in École, we pedalled up on electric mountain bikes to discover sweeping alpine scenery and valley views from up high. Hiring a bike is a great way to access unique places, and you’ll spot photo ops that are easily missed when driving.
Capturing movement
for normal, everyday photography, you only need your shutter speed to be fast enough to avoid camera-shake – a good rule is to be ‘one over the focal length’ so at least 1/100 sec for a focal length of 100mm.
However, when shooting fast-moving subjects, such as mountain bikers, shutter speed takes on a whole new role. The longer the shutter is open, the more your subject moves during the exposure, so even faster shutter speeds of around 1/250 sec to 1/500 sec are required to ‘freeze’ them. It was a wet and cloudy day, and the tall trees surrounding the mountain track made it quite dark, so we set our ISO to 800-1600 to achieve fast enough shutter speeds.
Motion blur
using a fast shutter speed to freeze your subject can result in quite a static-looking shot. So an alternative is to set a much slower shutter speed and ‘pan’ to follow the movement of your subject. Get it right and they will look sharp against a blurry background, conveying a real sense movement. Shoot continuously with a shutter speed of around 1/80 sec, swinging smoothly as you follow the action through the viewfinder. Decrease the shutter speed as you hone your technique – we shot at 1/30 sec for our most successful panning shot.