Understanding Shutter Speed

What I love most about Darcy's blog is her ability to make what seems to be a complicated setting into something so simple. When I first got my camera I tried to read every piece of the manual and after a while it all started to look like a different language. So when I turned to her blog for the first lesson in shutter speed, she explained is as such...

"Imagine you’re at the sink with a small cup. You want to fill the cup with water. So you reach for the faucet. If you leave the water on too long, the cup will overflow and spill. If you don’t leave it on long enough, your cup will not fill.

You need to leave the faucet running for just the right amount of time to fill the cup, but not go over.

Using that analogy – you need to leave your shutter open for just the right amount of time to let in light to fill your photo and record your image, but not spill over and overexpose it." 

Having read this, I went outside and started experimenting with shutter speed using the Time Value setting, which allows you to change the shutter speed while the camera automatically selects the aperture and ISO…. 

1/120

 1/80

 1/60

 1/40

 1/30

 1/20

1/8

Looking back at these after loading them to my computer it's interesting to see the significant changes after just turning the wheel one or two notches. I think I'll need to experiment more to fully understand different situations to use each shutter speed. 

What a fun adventure that has begun!

With love, 

Katie