What is Shutter Speed?

Ever wondered why a part of your image is blurry when the rest is tack sharp? You may be at a slower shutter speed. In other words, you may be letting the iris to remain open for a longer time than needed.

The shutter speed is usually measured in seconds or fraction of seconds. Larger the denominator in the fraction means faster shutter speed and vice-versa. You have to be careful about the focal length of the lens you are using.

Always use a shutter speed higher than your focal length. Meaning, if you are using a 50mm lens, you have to set your shutter speed to a minimum of 1\60s. If you are handling a 200mm lens, you have to set your shutter speed to a minimum of 1\250s.

I don’t trust words. I trust pictures. Gilles Peress

During the handheld photoshoot, it is advised to have a minimum shutter speed of 1/60s. This lessens the risk of camera shake affecting the image quality unless you are crazily chasing your subject, which you won't have to in normal situations.

The faster you let the shutter to close, you freeze the objects in the image. The slower you devise the shutter to close, the object in the image appears blurry or warped.Exposure time is comparatively less when you have faster shutter speed. Slower shutter speed means more exposure time.

Aperture, Focal length and ISO also play an important part in getting a sharp image or a blurry one.