What is Shutter Speed? How it Works?

In the time of photography through Digital camera or in mobile phone camera’s pro mode, all of us may notice a function named by ‘Shutter speed’. Let see what is shutter speed.

    Shutter speed is the speed at which the camera’s shutter opens and closes to allow light to reach the sensor or film.

    Shutter speed is the duration, for which the iris is open, for that reason the light can pass on to the frame. The shutter speed can vary from say 8 seconds to 1/4000 second and even further under you control (till which time you want to keep open the iris) up to a setting called ‘Bulb setting’ or the ‘B setting’ (this feature only in digital cameras, not in cheap mobile phone).

Now let’s know, how does it move!!

    If it is say for example 1/2000 second when it moves to 1/1000 second, it is double the amount of light, which is going into the frame, this moves in a particular order, for example, 1/4000th of a second, 1/2000th of a second, 1/1000th of a second, 1/500th of a second, 1/250th of a second, 1/125th of a second, 1/60th of a second, 1/30th of a second, 1/15th of a second, 1/8th of a second, 1/4th of a second, 1/2nd of a second, 1 second, 2 seconds, 4 seconds and as I said 8 seconds and finally bulb setting (It is controlled differently through the different system).

How Shutter slides in camera (various speed)

    These are the settings and each moment of that setting ensures either a double amount of light as I explained previously or half of the amount of the previous light. For example, If the shutter speed is 1/15th and you move on to 1/8th of a second then what you are doing is!! You are giving it a greater exposure that is to say slower exposure. On the other hand, if you moving from 15 to 30, you are making it a faster shutter speed, and as I said earlier each time the amount of light passes through is either half or double of the amount that was originally planned.

    Now in DSLR camera, you may find Shutter priority mode (S/Tv). Using the Shutter Priority mode will allow you to set your ideal shutter speed, while the camera will pick a corresponding aperture to expose the scene correctly.

                                1/250th and faster is an ideal setting to freeze motion in people.

A slower shutter speed (a larger fraction, such as 1/8th of a second) will allow more light to reach your sensor and, if slow enough, will create blur in an image (as in following image). 

                                                        Photos taken from google

In another article, I will describe How to take that kind of Image.

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