Photography 1: The Art of Photography

Project: Photographing Movement.
Exercise: Shutter Speeds

With the help of my subject and a plain background I took a number of photographs at different shutter speeds from 1 second to 1/1250 of a second.  The aperture was adjusted with each change in shutter speed to ensure the correct exposure.

I asked my subject to walk backwards and forwards at a steady speed in front of the camera.  I adjusted the shutter speed after each pass.

The photographs taken are shown below:

7059 Shutter speed: 1 second

The camera was not able to adjust the aperture to a small enough size to give a correct exposure.  All the motion is blurred and the subject cannot be seen.

7060 Shutter speed: 1/10 second

The subject is blurred but still discernible as a person walking.  The leg in motion is very blurred.  Overall a good sense of movement, useful for crowd shots.

7061 Shutter speed: 1/30 second

The subject is slightly blurred but quite clear.  The leg in motion is blurred but still clearly a leg.  Good sense of movement.

7062 Shutter speed: 1/60 second

The subject is slightly blurred.  There is no real motion blur.  There is not a particularly good sense of movement.

7063 Shutter speed: 1/125 second

The subject is slightly blurred.  There is no real motion blur.  There is not a particularly good sense of movement.

7064 Shutter speed: 1/250 second

 This photograph is the first where the subject is sharply frozen with no particular sense of movement.  The following photographs were all taken at faster shutter speeds so the subject is also sharply frozen in each one.

7065 Shutter speed: 1/320 second

7066 Shutter speed: 1/500 second

7067 Shutter speed: 1/800 second

7068 Shutter speed: 1/1250 second

What have I learned from this exercise ?

Different situations require different shutter speeds in order to freeze the movement, if required.  Also, in some situations different parts of the image will be frozen and others blurred.