Dallas Wedding Photographers - Shutter Speed

Controlling shutter speed is one of the most important aspects of photography for a beginner to learn. While modern cameras have all kinds of crazy features and extras, there are only a couple parts that are absolutely necessary for taking a picture. Even in film cameras, all you really need is a way to keep light off the film (or sensor in digital cameras) and a lens to focus the light into the scene we see with our eyes.

The shutter and the aperture are the two things that let you control the light that gets into the camera. The aperture is the size of the opening that lets in the light, and the shutter is a way to block out light when you’re not taking a photo. The shutter speed is what we’re learning to work with today.

Knowing how to compose an artistic shot is all well and good, but it doesn’t do a whole lot of good if you can’t get the the right amount of light to the camera. Too much or too little light will ruin an otherwise good photo. When you press the shutter button on the camera, it opens the shutter and lets light onto the sensor (or film). Shutter speed is just the amount of time that the shutter is open, so adjusting the shutter speed will change the amount of light entering the camera. A fast shutter speed is required when shooting in a bright area, while a slower shutter speed will work better when there isn’t much light to capture.

This doesn’t mean a whole lot unless you have a frame of reference for what’s considered fast versus slow. For the most part, the shutter speed will be less than a second. while shutter speeds longer than a second aren’t uncommon, most shutter speeds are measured in fractions of a second, such as 1/100 or 1/1000. Dallas wedding photographers will usually shoot between 1/60 and 1/250. Anything quicker and you usually won’t capture the flash going off, and any slower and you’ll get blurriness because of movement.

There are times when this range doesn’t work quite as well. When shooting on a sunny day, you will probably have a shutter speed of 1/1000 or 1/2000. Any slower and the light from the sun will blow out the photo. Then there are times when you need to shoot with a shutter speed longer than a second, called long exposure shots. For these shots, you’ll need a tripod to keep the camera from moving, which can cause unwanted blur. Dallas wedding photographers rarely do this unless they’re trying to capture some artistic dance floor photos during the reception.