Going to Extremes with Shutter Speed

Going to Extremes with Shutter Speed

As you begin to digest more and more this simple rule of exposure, it will soon become clear that the need to pay attention to what aperture choice or shutter speed choice will in fact lead you to conclude that there is but one truly creatively correct exposure most of the time and this is particularly true as you begin to notice that the world offers up an unlimited supply of motion-filled opportunities. When capturing these motion filled opportunities you will find yourself, more often than not, on either end of the shutter speed spectrum; using fast shutter speeds to freeze the action in crisp sharp detail or using slow shutter speeds and the resulting blur to suggest or imply the motion present. There is rarely a ‘middle ground’ when it comes to the motion-filled world and with that in mind, it won’t be long before you discover that most of your time is being spent on action-filled scenes between 1/500s and 1/1000s OR between 1/4s to 8s.

Image 9

Image 10

With my camera and 80-400mm Nikkor zoom mounted on tripod and the lens set to 300mm, I captured Image 9 at f/4 and 1/500s. Image 10 was shot at f/22 and 1/15s. Both exposures are exactly the same in terms of quantitative value, BUT quite different in the arena of ‘creative exposure’. Note how at the wide open aperture of f/4 (Image 9) the splash is frozen in crisp sharp detail but at f/22 (Image 10) that same splash is much more ethereal.
Recording a correct exposure will always be your responsibility, so why not make it a point to make the most deliberately and visually compelling ‘creative’ exposure possible!?

Exercise 2: Motion-Filled Exposures

One of the best lessons I know of is one that I have offered up to countless students over the years in my on-location workshops and at my on-line photography school. It is a very revealing lesson and not surprisingly will lead you further into the world of creatively correct motion-filled exposures. Choose a moving subject, such as a waterfall or a child on a swing or shoot something as simple as someone pounding a nail into a piece of wood.
With your camera set to Aperture Priority Mode, your ISO set to 100, (or 200 ISO if that is the lowest your camera offers) and your aperture set to wide open, (f/2.8, f/3.5 or f/4) take an image of the action before you. You have just recorded an exposure at the fastest possible shutter speed based on the ISO in use, the light that is falling on your subject and of course your use of the largest lens opening. Now stop the lens down one full stop, (if you started at an aperture of f/2.8 then go to f/4 and if your lens starts with f/4 then go to f/5.6) and once again take another exposure of the action filled subject. Repeat this each time with the aperture set next to f/8, then f/11, then f/16 and finally f/22. Each time you change the aperture by what is called a ‘full stop’, your camera does a quick recalculation and offers up the ‘new’ shutter speed to maintain a correct exposure and since you are stopping the lens down with each full stop change in aperture, (making the hole in the lens half as big as it was before) your shutter speed has now doubled in time to compensate, or in other words, your shutter speed is becoming progressively slower. The slower your shutter speed the more likely it is that your action filled subject before you is showing signs of ‘blurring’, since the shutter speed is too slow to ‘freeze it’.