Skills Development (10th November)
Shutter Speeds
In my last practical lesson, I learnt the effectiveness of changing the shutter speed when taking a photograph and when I need to alter it to create different effects.
Shutter speeds allows you to control the type of picture you’re going to take. It controls the amount of time the shutter is open and therefore how much light can be passed through the lens aperture to reach the film. Shutter speed is measured in fractions of a second (1/4000 is a very fast shutter speed whereas 1/2 is a very slow shutter speed).
You would use a fast shutter speed to freeze the action such as an Olympic swimmer which is very fast movement or a wildlife shot like a cheetah running, to obtain detail in the motion. Also, by using a fast shutter speed, you reduce the depth of field which isolates the subject you’re photographing.
You would use a slow shutter speed to create a deliberate effect. This could be a motion blur such as a fast car driving past and are used to create a big depth of field by using a small aperture. They are used in low light with help of a tripod to steady the camera to create a clearer more effective image.
Experimenting with different shutter speeds
Firstly, I wanted to create the star jump to have a motion blur. Therefore, I used a slow shutter speed of 1/25 sec.
I then retook the same shot with a faster shutter speed of 1/1000 sec in order to create a freeze frame of the star jump.
I then changed the motion to running. I wanted to create a motion blur; therefore, I used a slow shutter speed of 1/25 sec.
And to create a freeze frame, I changed the shutter speed to a faster one of 1/500
Image Quality and Problems
The exposure of all four photographs remains acceptable as they were taken on the automatic setting which maintained the correct exposure. Also, i didn;t have an issure with framing as i made sure i had enough sppace top and bottom, ldft and right and managed to capture the action in the centre of each shot. However, on the slow shutter speeds, the overall image suffered from camera shake as I didn’t use a tripod. You can see this by looking at the quality of the background on the blurred images. By using a tripod, there would be no movement of the camera whilst maintaining movement of the subject.
Targets for next time
Next time I do photography, I would like to experiment with ISO settings to see the effect on the quality of the image. I would also like to experiment with different depths of field by using the full range of apertures available on the lens.
