2022 Weekly Photo Challenge
Week 3: Fast Shutter Speed
Welcome to a new year of weekly photography challenges! For the month of January, our first few weekly challenges will focus on somewhat more technical aspects of controlling your camera.
Last week’s challenge was all about slowing things down, using slower shutter speeds to experiment with long exposure photography. Your assignment this week, should you choose to accept it, is to swing the pendulum all the way the other direction and work with super fast shutter speeds.
With long exposure photography, the goal was to use a shutter speed slower than 1/30 of a second. This time around you’ll want to look at the other end of the spectrum, using a minimum shutter speed of 1/800, preferably 1/1000 or faster!
So what can you do with a super fast shutter speed? The most common use is to freeze motion:
1/1250s, f/3.5, ISO1600
Keep in mind when using a super-fast shutter speed that you’ll be severely limiting the amount of light your camera can capture. This means to produce a normally-exposed image, you’ll need to flex the other two sides of the exposure triangle, aperture and ISO sensitivity. In the sample image, the 1/1250 sec. shutter speed was offset by using a wide-open aperture at f/3.5, and a slightly higher ISO at 1600.
Of course, if you wanted to freeze motion in a darker, more somber image, you could tighten the aperture and/or keep the ISO lower, too. Your assignment this week, if you choose to accept it, is to think about what kind of fast-shutter-speed image you want to create & then get out there to make it happen!
Eric Culver Photography 