Lighting Photo Workshop

Chapter 6. ACTION, SPORTS, MOTION, BLUR

• It Is All About the Shutter

• Stopping Motion

• Slow Down to Show Motion

• Long Exposures to Show Motion

• Water and Nature

• Panning

• Using Flash to Capture the Movement

Showing movement and motion in digital photography can be as much about stopping the action in an instant as using blur to convey that action more literally. In many cases, using blur implies more motion in a photograph than stopping it cold. Your digital camera has the ability to create images that best show that motion in your photography. This chapter teaches you to understand how to control the shutter speed to control the motion.

IT IS ALL ABOUT THE SHUTTER

Digital cameras can have shutters speeds that range from as slow as 30 seconds to as fast as 1/8000 second. These speeds allow photographers to stop the action as they see fit, as long as a good exposure can be reached. Most of the photographs are taken with shutter speeds from 1/30 to 1/1000 second. Slower than 1/30 often needs a tripod, or the shake from the photographer's hands will blur the image; faster than 1/1000 usually means using a greater amount of light, higher ISO, or much more shallow depth of field.

As the shutter opens and closes, it captures the light for that small amount of time. Things that are moving faster need faster shutter speeds to freeze that motion. As the shutter speed goes up, the amount of light needed for ...