View Doug McKinlay's shutter speed gallery and read on to find out how to get the same results

With lower-priced digital single lens reflex (DSLR) cameras flooding the market in the past couple of years photography has probably never been so popular.

However, just because cameras have come down in price doesn’t mean they are any easier to use. Whether people still shoot film or have made the digital jump, the basic nuts and bolts of photography remain the same.

I see so many people outfitted with the latest DSLR’s who still shoot on automatic or program mode. This means the camera is controlling you and not the other way around.

Remember, the camera is just a dumb box to catch light and it doesn’t matter if that box uses film or a digital sensor to record images. Light is the lifeblood of photography, without it pictures wouldn’t exist, but in order to create well-exposed images photographers first must understand how to manage light.

The practical means to do this is by manipulating shutter speeds and aperture settings. The first controls the length of time light is allowed to fall on the film plane or sensor and the second controls the amount of light entering the camera through the lens barrel.

On the surface these two functions are simply practical applications, but once understood they are the prime movers and shakers of creative photography. Here we will look a little closer at shutter speeds and what they can do for you.

Modern cameras will typically be able to use shutter speeds ranging from long exposures of 30 seconds or more to incredibly fast speeds of up to 1/8000sec. This will vary of course between manufacturers and models.

By adjusting the shutter speed you can control the movement of the subject. A fast shutter speed will freeze the subject and a slow shutter speed will make it look blurred as the subject moves. You can also combine flash with a slow speed to get movement and blur while freezing action all in the same shot. Understanding how shutter speeds affect images is a matter of trial and error, made easier with today’s digital equipment.

A great technique for putting action in a picture that might otherwise be dull is to use a slow shutter speed with a panning motion. Typically, pick a subject that is moving at a moderate speed (Picture 1 in the gallery, above left) across your field of view. Focus and follow the subject, pressing the shutter release as the subject passes directly in front of you. Remember to continue panning the camera even after the shutter has released. The image produced should have the subject sharp and the background blurred. Shutter speeds for these types of images can be as slow as 1/8sec up to about 1/60sec. Getting it right is all about practise.

This can also work in the opposite way. This time instead of panning the camera to blur out the background and sharpen the main subject, the effect is to keep the background sharp and blur the subject (Picture 2). Once an interesting background is found, with the right subject moving across the field of view, it’s best to set the camera on a tripod or a stable surface and frame the image the way you want it to look. What you are trying to achieve is pin sharp backgrounds and colourful blurred subjects. So using slow shutter speeds for this technique makes a stable shooting position a necessity. Again, trial and error plays a big role here. It’s a lucky photographer who can pull this off in one frame.

This same combination of tripod and slow shutter speeds also works well when blurring out moving water, giving fountains and rivers a milky glow (Picture 3).

But don’t get locked into strict formulaic methods. It’s not compulsory for all images to have a sharp aspect. Sometimes it’s just movement or colour that is the subject (Pictures 4 and 5). Don’t be afraid to shoot from the hip.

Fast shutter speeds, on the other hand, freeze action. However getting it right is not quite that simple. There are a number of considerations that come into play when trying to stop movement: speed of subject, distance of subject from photographer, length of lens, direction of movement, available light etc.

As a baseline, it is said that a minimum of 1/250sec is needed to freeze motion. This may be true, but I’ve found that shutter speeds need to be much faster to truly stop action. For instance when shooting sports or wildlife, a shutter speed of around 1/1000sec does a much better job of catching the decisive moment (Picture 6 and 7). As for framing a frozen subject, like all good images they work better when they fill the frame, meaning get as close as safely possible.

One last technique that can be effective is to use a slow shutter speed with a flash. Called slow or second curtain sync, it is a method of getting some blurred motion into an image while at the same time freezing action (Picture 8). It is a favourite among sports photographers covering cycling or motoring events or travel photographers at bustling festivals (Picture 9).

It can be used with either a shoe mounted flash or the pop-up flash available on most modern consumer DSLRs. Basically, when the shutter is released the flash will fire only at the end of the cycle, when the shutter curtain is closing. So if a shutter speed of two seconds is used, the flash will pop at the end of that time resulting in a blurred background and a frozen subject. It’s best to consult your camera manuals to see how this is configured in individual camera models.

Getting your head around this is just practise, practise and more practise. Once comfortable with how shutter speeds affect images it won’t be long before you’ll see big improvements in your pictures.