TAOP Shutter Speeds.

Outline: Create a range of images by photographing something moving infront of you several times, using a range of shutter speeds.


 For this exercise, my boyfriend and I took our son for a walk in the lovely foggy welsh weather. I found a setting with a pretty uneventful backdrop and set up my tripod, with my subjects ready to walk back and forth in front of me. (It was a cold day, it kept them warm :) )
I set my shutter speed to 0.5 for my first shot:


1: Shutter Speed 0.5

 As you can see, the background is perfectly crisp and the moving subject is a blur of colour. Picture 2 came out pretty much the same with the shutter speed at F1/4.


4: Shutter Speed 1/30

The picture above is number 4 and was very similar to picture 3 which was 1/15. This picture shows a lot more shape to the subject although still has obvious movement blur. In comparison to picture 1 above, you can now tell exactly what the subject is.



5: Shutter Speed 1/60

I'm now halfway through the range of shutter speeds and picture 5 shows the subject even less blurred than picture 4 but still slightly out of focus. The subjects feet are more blurred than the rest of him, showing that his feet are moving faster than his upper body.



6: Shutter Speed 1/100

Pictures 6 and picture 7 (1/200) were very similar. The subject is now almost sharp with blurring limited to the subjects feet due to faster movement.



8: Shutter Speed 1/500

 Pictures 8 (above), 9 (1/1000) & 10 (1/1600) were all practically identical. The subject now appears completely clear with no blurring to the feet either, showing a completely frozen moment. These last 3 pictures had to be edited to alter the exposure, as even though my camera was set to adjust the shutter speed and to automatically alter the aperture, the aperture would not lower past F4. Therefore the last 3 pictures with the highest shutter speed were too dark.


Conclusion:
This exercise has been a lot of fun to do and i've learned a lot about capturing the movement of a subject with relation to shutter speeds. I haven't experimented with shutter speed before and it's interesting to see the difference it can make to the image, especially laid out in sequence as above. It can be a very dramatic effect as conveys subject movement very well. I like the abstractness of picture 1, with the subject almost unrecogniseable and it was also good to see how the exposure darkens if not adjusted to meet the adjustment of the shutter speed.

Experimenting with Shutter Speed :



1/15



1/200