Yesterday, we discussed how the Aperture on your camera works. We will now focus on the third element of the exposure triangular, the shutter speed.
What is shutter speed in photography?
The shutter speed is an alternative way to let more light into your camera. It is also a bit easier than the aperture. When you press the button for a photo, the shutter makes the “clicking” sound. Imagine it as a curtain that opens up to let in light and closes again to prevent the camera from recording any more light.
The shutter speed is measured in seconds and can be shown as 1/30, 1/60, 1/125 1/250, 1/500 etc. The shutter speed is usually measured in seconds, and shown as 1/30 1/60 1/125 1/250 1/500 etc. A shutter speed of 1/5 will open and shut the shutter in one-fifth of a second.
You can see that I took six photos of the same subject, adjusting only the shutter speed for each one.
The slower shutter speeds (here starting at 1/125) allow more light into the camera than faster shutter speeds.
In the example below, 1/4000 is the fastest shutter speed, allowing very little light in, and resulting in an extremely dark exposure.