Week 4 - Shutter Priority

This week's photography challenge is the play with shutter speeds. This is by far the most difficult photography concept for me. So I am eager to figure this one out. First of all, the things I learned in the previous weeks will help tremendously. In the past, I have had trouble with shutter speed. I know that a fast shutter speed stops action...freezes it. I know that a slower shutter speed slows things down...makes them look fluid or slightly blurred to show motion. The problem I always had in the past was that if I wanted to use a slower shutter speed, my images were always very washed out because too much light was hitting the sensor. Now I know that I can adjust my ISO to help with this issue. It's all coming together.

I went to the Biltmore in Coral Gables to shoot on of their fountains for this assignment. I wanted a stable subject that still had movement...what better than a fountain with moving water! However, there wasn't enough water to get a really dramatic effect, so I will be doing this assignment again. Nonetheless, the images I got do show how shutter speeds can effect the image.

All images in this set shot with a Canon 20D, 52mm focal length, no flash, and the white balance set for shade.

Since the images are small, you will need to click on the images for larger views in order to see the details and differences.


f/5.6
1/1000
ISO 1600








f/5.6
1/500
ISO 800







These next two images were shot with the same f-stop and shutter speed. But the ISO was changed. You can see that the second image (ISO 200) is darker than the first image (ISO 400). This is because the lower ISO makes the sensor less sensitive to light. So, since the shutter speed is relatively fast, you need a higher ISO so that enough light makes it to the sensor.


f/5.6
1/200
ISO 400








f/5.6
1/200
ISO 200







The last three images were shot with the slower shutter speeds.


f/7.1
1/60
ISO 200








f/18
1/4
ISO 100








f/22
1/2
ISO 100







The images I shot after this were overexposed. This was because I could not adjust the ISO lower than 100, therefore too much light was hitting the sensor and causing the washed out images from my past.