Shutter Speed

Whenever an amateur photographer wishes to break out of his shell and get into some serious photography then he would have to start learning about 2 important features of the camera. The shutter and the aperture. In this post we will have a look at the shutter of the camera.

So, what is this shutter?
The shutter is something which covers the opening to the sensor of the camera. If the shutter is closed then there will be no light going to the camera and if the shutter is open then the light will reach the camera and it will be able to capture the image of the object that you are pointing the camera at. You can think of the shutter as something similar to your eye lid. When you open your eye lids, light enters and you are able to see. When you close your eye lids, no light enters and you are hence not able to see anything.

Shutter Speeds:
So, what can you do with the shutter to influence the photos that you take? You can set a parameter in the camera called shutter speed. The shutter speed dictates the duration for which the shutter will remain open hence allowing light into the sensor/film of the camera. Shutter speed is measured in seconds. If you set the shutter speed value as 1s, then that means the shutter will be open for 1 full second. If you set it to 1/500s, then that means the shutter will be open only for 1/500th of a second.

How do you think the shutter speed can influence the image formed? Think of when you were a kid and you used to burn leaves/paper using a magnifying glass. You had to focus the rays of the sun onto the paper for a good number of seconds before the paper caught fire. If you had held it for just a few seconds then it wouldn't have made a difference to the paper. If you had held it a little longer then you would have noticed that the paper start to get charred. What I am trying to say is that the intensity of light that the paper receives, is directly proportional to the amount of time for which light falls upon its surface. Similarly, if the shutter is open for a short duration then less light enters the camera, than if the shutter is open for a longer duration.

Usually shutter speeds are not mentioned anywhere on the body of the camera as a major specification. This is very much unlike the other parameters of the camera like aperture, zoom, megapixels etc. This is because not many people look for the shutter speeds when buying a camera. Usually the compact cameras have a fastest shutter speed of 1/2000s, larger(and costlier) ones have it at about 1/4000s. Semi-pro SLRs have much faster shutter speeds at 1/8000s. On the other hand the slowest shutter speeds can range from 2s in some compacts, to 8s in the majority of the compacts. Some more advanced compacts have slowest shutter speeds in the range of 30s - imagine the amount of light entering the camera at this setting. SLRs have a mode called bulb mode, where the shutter is open for an indefinite time till a pre-defined button is pressed.

We shall see how to be more creative at taking photographs using the shutter speeds in a later post. For now this is all you would need to know about shutters in cameras.