Yesterday, I decided to experiment with my camera (Canon EOS M3) by playing with the shutter speed.

According to Digital Photography School, “Shutter speed is measured in seconds – or in most cases fractions of seconds which means the bigger the denominator the faster the speed (ie 1/1000 is much faster than 1/30)” or in other words, the higher the shutter speed (eg. 1/2000), the result of your photo will be more still and vice versa.

This is not my first time trying out shutter speed, but I certainly have forgotten a lot about it and have never actually purposedly attempted any experiments on shutter speed. Thus, what i did was have my camera on the “shutter priority” setting where I can adjust my shutter speed setting anywhere from 1/4000 to 30″. Then I use my own hand as a moving subject in front of the camera. I moved my hand from the left top corner of the frame to the bottom right corner while pressing the shutter release. I did this a few times, each with different shutter speed setting. Results are as below:

 

As you can see, the higher the shutter speed, the clearer and stiller my hand looks, and the other way around. By the time it gets to 1/4, the captured motion was almost dream like which i liked, but then you go to 4″ and you get a white screen. So basically, along with the adjustment of the shutter speed, the brightness is automatically adjusted too, aka the aperture. The lower the shutter speed, the brighter the image, aka lower aperture, and vice versa.

I also tried doing some video shots with different shutter speed settings but nothing happened. Both videos looked the same. So I’m guessing shutter speed only works in capturing still images.

Lastly, it was a fun experiment and I learned quite a bit regarding the basics of my own camera, as I have mostly only used the Auto setting. I hope you guys find this post helpful, and good luck and have fun learning!

 

xx