How can shutter speed be used to control an image?

Question

shutter speed, exposure and focus

Answer 1

If you can manually control both the aperture and shutter speed, then you can close the aperture way down and slow shutter speed to get greater depth of field.  But shutter speed only will allow stopping action.

Answer 2

Primarily, shutter speeds affect the image by controlling (or not) the motion-blur of moving objects in the frame. The classic example is a fountain or a waterfall. If you take a shot with a short shutter speed (1/1000 sec), then the water appears "frozen" in place, but with a slow shutter speed (1/2 sec), you'll get an image where the water looks smooth and silky,

Answer 3

I thought the F stop had more about controlling the speeds etc.

Answer 4

The faster the shutter speed, the wider the aperture. and vice versa

So if you want slow shutter speed you need to reduce the aperture otherwise you will over expose the image.

I don't know what camera you are using but if it's a digital SLR or a 'bridge' camera, you can experiment at negligible cost.

I prefer to use aperture priority with the camera on a tripod, by using a small aperture and therefore a long exposure (slow shutter) you get all the detail and if anyone walks across the path of the image they will not necessarily appear on the image.  If you use a faster shutter speed and therefore a wider aperture any movement is more likely to be visible.

HTH

Answer 5

Lots and lots of ways. You can't expect a photography lesson as an answer on here. Just one example. If you were taking a shot of a fast moving object like a race car, and wanted it to be streaky to give the impression of speed, then you would set a slow shutter speed, pan the camera so that it is moving with the car and then click. Because the shutter speed is slow it will streak the background so the car will look fast. Or if you wanted to freeze the whole picture so everything was clear then you would use a fast shutter speed.

The other settings, once you have selected your shutter speed will depend on the light, the speed of the film you are using if using film, etc etc etc

Answer 6

Shutter speed: freeze or blur motion.

Exposure (presumably you mean aperture): Depth of field.

Focus: Defines which part of the image (in terms of distance from the camera) will be sharp.

It is more complicated than this because photography is all about light, and how much. As well as the effect of aperture on depth of field (how much will be in focus).

Thus: fast shutter needs wider aperture. Wider aperture means less depth of field which means less of your image will be in focus. (An advantage if you want to isolate your subject from the background).

Slower shutter speed means that you can have a smaller aperture and hence increased depth of field. Good for Landscape work.

These shutter speed changes depend, of course, on whether your subject is still or not. Or even whether your camera is steady or not!

Does this help?

Photography in a nutshell. And I haven't even touched on composition, colour balance, contrast and a host of other issues.