Shutter speed

Longer shutter speed

Stop motion

Last week's photography lesson focused on shutter speed. The shutter on a camera is like a door, it opens and closes allowing light to pass through the door. The longer the door is open, the more light comes in, the shorter it is open, the less light comes in. Changing the length of time the shutter is open helps you to control how much light hits the sensor, or film, in my case, sensor.

Our assignment was to take two pictures of the same thing, one in stop motion and one in full motion. If you we're taking a picture of a child running, you would probably want to freeze the motion and get them perfectly in focus, for this, you will need a very FAST shutter speed, but say you want to slow the water down in a fountain behind you, this will be a very SLOW shutter speed, where you will see the water almost "soften" and blur. This is a very cool aspect of picture taking, that you can slow down the movement that the eye sees.

I was pretty unhappy with the subject, but I just didn't get that "perfect opportunity" like I did with aperture, but I was glad that I had gotten the overall "concept".