Shutter Priority Practice Around the Room
Okay. This is the lesson where you actually put a number on it.
We've talked about what the shutter's doing, how it freezes motion or blurs it, and how slow you can hand hold before things go soft on you. Now I want you standing up, camera in hand, dial turned to S (Canon calls it Tv, same thing, don't let that trip you up), and I want you walking around the room finding things to shoot.
Here's the thing. You can read about shutter speed all day and it won't mean anything until you've shot the same object six different ways and seen the difference on your own screen. So that's the whole lesson today. No new theory. Just practice, on purpose, in a room you already know.
Set up first
Put your camera in shutter priority. Pick something in the room that's not moving, a water bottle, a chair, somebody's bag on the table. Doesn't matter what.
Shoot it at these speeds, one at a time, and actually look at each result before moving to the next:
- 1/1000
- 1/250
- 1/60
- 1/30
- 1/8
- 1 full second (use something to brace the camera for this one, a table edge or a stack of books)
Write the shutter speed down next to each shot, or just say it out loud to yourself so it sticks. I keep a little notebook for this kind of thing, exposure numbers and what worked, and it's saved me more than once. You don't need a fancy system. A sticky note works.
What you're watching for isn't just brightness, though you'll notice the picture changes brightness as the shutter speed changes, since a slower shutter lets in more light. What I want you watching is how the camera's compensating. At 1/1000 on that same still object, in a normal indoor room, you may need a wide aperture or a bumped ISO just to get anything visible at all. That's fine, we haven't gotten to aperture and ISO yet, so for today just notice it. Don't fix it. Notice it.
Then find something that moves
Ask somebody in the room to walk past you, or wave their hand, or just swing a lanyard around a little. I know, it feels silly. Do it anyway.
Shoot that motion at 1/1000, then at 1/60, then at 1/8. You'll get three completely different pictures of the same motion. Frozen, a little blurred, and a full streak. That's the whole lesson in three frames.
I'll be honest with you, this is the exercise that actually teaches shutter speed. Not the manual, not me talking at you. Your own eyes comparing your own three photos.
A story about getting it wrong for three hours
I'll tell you about the time I did not do this kind of methodical practice, and it cost me.
I drove up Alpine one night, a few years back, to shoot the Milky Way. I had a tripod, I had snacks, I had what I thought was a plan. What I did not have was any real understanding of ISO yet, so I sat out there in the cold for three hours shooting frame after frame of pure noise. Grainy, useless, nothing you could show anybody. I came home cold and irritated and honestly a little embarrassed, and the next morning I sat down and read about ISO until I actually understood it, not just could recite it.
The reason I'm telling you that story here, in a shutter speed lesson, is that I made the mistake of trying to learn all three settings at once, out in the dark, under pressure, with nobody to check my work. That's backwards. Learn one thing at a time, in a room with good light and nothing at stake, before you take it up a canyon at eleven at night. Tonight's exercise, standing in this room shooting a water bottle, is boring on purpose. Boring is where the learning happens. Alpine at midnight is where you find out if it stuck.
A caution, plainly
If you're bracing the camera against a table or a chair for that one-second shot, press the shutter gently. Stabbing at the button transfers a little jolt right into the camera and you'll get blur you didn't intend, and then you won't know if it's the shutter speed doing that or your finger. Isolate one variable at a time, always. That's true in the shop and it's true here.
What I'm looking for as I walk around
I'm going to come by and look at your screen while you're doing this. If I see you've shot all six speeds but you haven't looked at a single result yet, I'm going to stop you and ask you what you noticed. Not to put anyone on the spot. I just want to make sure you're actually comparing, not just clicking through a checklist to be done with it.
And if I notice your camera's sitting untouched on the table while you watch your neighbor shoot theirs, I'm going to hand it to you. Gently. But I'm going to do it.
Before next time
Pick one thing at home that moves on its own, a ceiling fan, water running from a faucet, a pet if you've got a patient one, and shoot it at three different shutter speeds before our next session. Bring your favorite of the three and be ready to tell me why it's your favorite.