THE MANUAL ON MANUAL

BY TOM MARTINEZ & ANTONIO M. ROSARIO SWITCHTOMANUAL.COM PHOTO WORKSHOPS

The Field Guide to Manual Photography

Sample Chapters

SHUTTER SPEED

Imagine a garage door that can open and shut at all types of speed, from the slow, clunky pace of an actual garage doors to one that opens and closes in the blink of an eye. That’s really all we’re talking about when we talk shutter speed, which is about the simplest setting there is. If something’s moving fast you want a fast shutter speed to capture the movement. If your subject is stationary, you can slow your shutter way down without getting any blur.

Have you seen one of those photographs of a city at night in which the lights of cars are one long continuous stream up and down the street? That’s a very slow shutter speed. When the garage door opens onto the camera’s light sensor it will imprint the image. The longer it’s open, the more movement you’ll get. Contrast that with an image of a professional football player stretched out in mid-air reaching for the ball. If it’s a crisp image you can bet the sports photographer was using a very fast shutter speed (more like the blink of an eye). As you can see, the basic concept here is simple and intuitive: you want a fast shutter speed (a higher number) for fast action; a slow shutter speed for a stationary subject. Bam! That’s shutter speed.

Now let’s play around with a few examples. Let’s say you’re sitting at an outdoor café and you see someone with fire-engine red hair walking your direction. This is going to make for an interesting shot! Somebody walking involves a little movement so you’ll want a speed of at least 1/125. Then you leave the café and are waiting to cross the street when you see a bike messenger speeding your way. You want to capture the action but she’s moving fast. So crank up that shutter speed (to at least 1/1000)!

Or let’s say you’ve a friend’s running a 5K and has asked you to get a shot of him crossing the finish line. That’s a little bit faster then

somebody walking by (hopefully!), so you’ll probably want to be up around 1/500. Heck, turn it up to a 1/1000 if you want. As long as he or she’s not running at night you can always compensate for a fast shutter speed with your other settings.

Let’s say you’re like Tom and you like hawks: you’re going to want to keep that shutter speed super fast if want to the images to be crisp. Remember, we’re not dealing with film anymore so you can look at the back of the camera and see what you’re getting. If the image is blurry (and it’s not because it’s simply out of focus), you probably need a faster shutter speed (i.e., a higher number).

One very helpful thing to remember about shutter speed: it usually doesn’t hurt to set it too high. You’re far more likely to run into trouble if it’s too slow, especially when capturing movement. And that’s essentially what you need to know about shutter speed. Fast movement requires a fast shutter speed. It’s that simple.

Here’s a continuum for shutter speeds:

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Sleeping baby pedestrian walking spouse running falcon flying1/20-1/125 1/125-1/250 1/500-1/1000 1/2000-1/4000

slower shutter speed faster shutter speed

GETTING STARTED

Remember, when you’re first switching to manual it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. “Wait, was it a low aperture setting for a shallow depth of field?” Yes it was (shorten the length of the tape measure for a shallow depth of field). Don’t worry about all that now. We’ve given you more information than you need to simply get started, since all you really need is a basic understanding of how ISO, aperture and shutter speed interrelate. Once you get a feel for that you’ll be off and running. Also, you can always take a shot in auto mode to see what settings the camera selects in order to get your bearings. Then, depending on what you’re after and what you don’t like about the auto mode, you can make an adjustment and see what you get. Similarly, if you’re shooting sports you might want to go straight to Tv, or S, mode and crank up that shutter speed because you know you’re going to want to open and close the garage door really really fast. Then review the image and see what the camera chose for an aperture and work off that.

The key is to shoot, review and adjust. As you do that you’ll begin to get an intuitive feel for how the three components work together. Before long these technical details will become second nature and you’ll be back to the real joy of photography, which is capturing the images you want to capture.

Because digital photography lends itself to self-teaching, we’ve included a few sample images with too much or not enough light. Along with each image is a suggestion for how to go about correcting it, though if you’ve read this far you’ll probably already know what to do!

Good luck and happy shooting!

Join us for photo workshops and photo walks when you’re in the New York City area. Check SwitchToManual.com for a full schedule of classes and photo walks.

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