Camera and Capture Module 5 – Shutter Speed

This week we were asked to experiment with shutter speed in different ways to get different looks with our images. We had to photograph a moving object with different shutter speeds to freeze and blur motion, photograph a moving object using a technique called ‘panning’, take a long exposure photograph and use long exposure to create a ‘light painting’. Here are my results.

Freezing and blurring motion

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Something to observe with these photos is not just the blurring of the subject at different shutter speeds, but also the light or darkness of the image. In my first image it is very dark because I am shooting in Shutter priority mode, and have the shutter speed on the fastest my camera can go. But my aperture cannot open enough for this speed in these lighting conditions, resulting in an underexposed photo. The opposite is true for the last image. Shooting in Shutter priority mode, my aperture cannot close enough to compensate for the slow shutter speed in these lighting conditions, resulting in an overexposed image.

Panning

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Well this week I learned that I suck at Panning! Panning is where you take a photo of a moving subject by following them with your camera. It is supposed to result in a sharp subject but a blurred background. As you can see, my subject is not sharp. I need loads more practice!

Long exposure

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This shot I managed to catch when some cars went past in between taking light painting shots. I love the effect. On closer inspection, the signs look doubled, like I may have bumped the camera when I pressed the shutter or maybe knocked the tripod during exposure. To fix this in the future, I am going to buy a remote shutter release.

Light Painting

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Light painting was my favourite activity this week. My family and I had so much fun creating these! The first four images were created by my husband waving a torch around to create patterns and words. The next two were a combined effort between my husband and son. The first hay bale image was created by my son running across the field of view and lighting up the hay bales with a torch, while my husband used another torch to create patterns in the air. The next hay one was created by my son holding a torch at each hay bale while my husband used another torch to trace around each bale, then they both moved onto the next one, etc. In this one you can see where my son stopped in front of the camera for a few seconds. The last one was created by using a torch to colour in the tree with light for the full exposure time.
All photos were taken at 30 sec.

I had so much fun creating these images this week, especially the light painting. I learnt a lot about shutter speed and I can’t wait to put this into practice for the next assignment.