Shooting with Manual Shutter speed

[Rickay726]

just wondering if anyone shoots in manual shutter speed, i herd that you can more of a realistic color from the picture by doing this, the only thing is i am completely lost on trying to do so, is there anyway that some one can show me a website on it, i check google and had no luck.

or perhaps some one can explain it to me.

does it really make the color better?

are there any other advantages of shooting in manual shutter speed or any disadvantages?

any input would be greatly appreciated

 

[bousozoku]

You can control the blur or lack of blur in moving objects by adjusting the shutter speed. I don't see it affecting colour at all but that's an interesting thing to say.

 

[tech4all]

Color

I don't see how using manual controls for shutter speed can improve or change the color. I mean in essence the shutter doesn't do anything "special" as opposed to an automated mode. The only thing I can think of how it could effect color is the length of exposure. Provided the aperture stays the same you can have the film or sensor exposed to light for a longer or shorter period of time. That can either over or under expose the shot which in a way effects the color. That's the only thing I can think of. If it's true, I'd be interested in hearing an explanation of this.

Where did you hear this from?

 

[Tilpots]

Shutter speed will actually diminish/washout color the higher the speed (higher as in the bottom number 1/xxxx), but it will make moving objects much sharper, crisper and easier to see. Take a look at the world series on Fox. They have super slo-mo cams and you'll see a dramatic loss in color 'cause the shutter speed is cranked.

 

[extraextra]

The lens + postprocessing is what's going to make the color good or bad.

That said, it's basically what tilpots and tech4all said.

 

[JHacker]

Im going to be getting a DSLR soon and was wondering how you actually manually increase shutter speed. I'm pretty sure there's not just a setting for it, but it has to do with the other settings on the camera. Can someone please give me some insight into this?

Thanks-
J

 

[beavo451]

Im going to be getting a DSLR soon and was wondering how you actually manually increase shutter speed. I'm pretty sure there's not just a setting for it, but it has to do with the other settings on the camera. Can someone please give me some insight into this?

Thanks-
J

You have to read the camera manual. Usually it is a matter of changing the camera to "Manual" mode or "Shutter-Priority" mode and turning a command dial to change the speed.

 

[JHacker]

You have to read the camera manual. Usually it is a matter of changing the camera to "Manual" mode or "Shutter-Priority" mode and turning a command dial to change the speed.

So shutter speed and f-stop go hand in hand? If I can control the shutter speed with a button, does that automatically adjust f-stop and vice versa?

 

[mleary]

So shutter speed and f-stop go hand in hand? If I can control the shutter speed with a button, does that automatically adjust f-stop and vice versa?

In shutter priority mode, you choose the shutter speed and the aperture is chosen by the camera based on it's exposure determination.

Aperture priority is the reverse, you choose f-stop and shutter speed is automatic.

In manual mode you choose both and the cameras exposure meter does not do anything.

 

[peterparker]

Precisely. And aperture mode is used quite frequently.

 

[Clix Pix]

To use a concrete example, which might clarify things a little: you know those pictures you see of waterfalls where the water looks like silk pouring over the falls? That is due to a slow shutter speed in order to help show some of the water's motion rather than freezing it the way a fast shutter speed does. You put the camera into shutter priority mode and the aperture is then automatically selected once you've established the shutter speed you want to use. In full manual mode you have to set both the aperture and the shutter and that can sometimes make for more creative effects. I personally tend to shoot in aperture priority mode most of the time, but once in a while I'll venture into shutter priority. Rarely do I use full manual with needing to set both aperture and shutter speeds myself.

ETA: (an aside: Yo, Peterparker! Fancy meeting you here.... :smile

 

[Counterfit]

The lens + postprocessing is what's going to make the color good or bad.

That said, it's basically what tilpots and tech4all said.

Long exposure times (a few seconds or more) can **** with color too. With film, it's called reciprocity failure.

 

[sjl]

So shutter speed and f-stop go hand in hand? If I can control the shutter speed with a button, does that automatically adjust f-stop and vice versa?

Kind of sort of.

There are three variables a photographer has control over: ISO speed, shutter speed, and aperture size (aka f stop). (Well, ok, you can bring external lights to the party as well, which will change the values of these as well, but I'm assuming a constant level of lighting, with no artificial enhancement.) For a given level of exposure, if you change one of those, you have to change another to compensate.

For instance, suppose that you have a shot that you can take with ISO 100, 1/50th of a second, at f/16. You could also take that shot with ISO 200, 1/100th of a second, at f/16; or ISO 100, 1/12th of a second, at f/32; ISO 400, 1/800th of a second, f/8; etc.

If you keep ISO constant, that leaves you with shutter speed and aperture size. If you make the shutter speed faster, you also need to make the aperture wider to maintain the same exposure level. Narrower aperture means a slower shutter speed.

Any good (ie: DSLR, and more advanced point and shoot) camera will have three modes where you can play with these: "Aperture priority", "shutter (or time) priority", and "manual". Aperture priority means just what it suggests: the photographer sets the aperture desired, and the camera will adjust the shutter speed to suit. (Some cameras - notably Nikon DSLRs, I believe - can also automatically adjust the ISO if necessary, usually because the needed shutter speed is too slow or fast for the camera to do it.)

Shutter priority means you set the shutter speed you want, and the camera will set the aperture accordingly (again, some cameras will also adjust the ISO if necessary.)

Manual means you set everything yourself; you're ignoring the camera's opinion on what the exposure should be, and telling it "THIS speed, and THIS aperture, and I don't want any backchat from you about it, thank you very much, mister!"

All three have their place. eg: when trying to get a shot of a flame tower in action, I set my body to manual exposure: I knew roughly what exposure would give a good result, and I didn't want the camera guessing and getting it wrong. (It worked, in that the shots came out nicely, but didn't, in that they weren't as exciting as I'd hoped ... I'll have to try from a different angle next time.) Many photographers (even pros) will set their bodies to aperture priority if they want good control over the depth of field (f/2.8, thank you very much, let's isolate the subject from the background). Or sports photographers might set their bodies to shutter speed priority (1/1000th of a second, please, let's freeze the action).

 

[JHacker]

Thank you SJL and everyone else, you've been very helpful.

-J

 

[ChrisA]

Shutter speed will actually diminish/washout color the higher the speed (higher as in the bottom number 1/xxxx), but it will make moving objects much sharper, crisper and easier to see. Take a look at the world series on Fox. They have super slo-mo cams and you'll see a dramatic loss in color 'cause the shutter speed is cranked.

We are talking about still images here. Let's ignore video where we have odd and even field lines to worry about.

Shutter speed in itself has zero influence on color. But overall exposue does have an effect. Shutter speed is one of three components of exposure (the others are aperture and ISO) So by manually adjusting the shuter speed you can effect color. But you could do the same by manually adjusting either of the other two. Or by using a bit of "exposure compensation" and one of the auto-exposure modes. Of course this comes at the expense of details in shadow areas. Nothing is free.

On a digital camera reducing exposure will cause some of the otherwise blown out highights to not be blown out and retain color. But like I said there are other ways to do the same. A polerizing filter can help also.

 

[juanm]

http://www.kenrockwell.com
Apart from his very explicit website, he has a bibliography section... read any of its recommendations and you'll learn a lot.

 

[Le Big Mac]

I personally tend to shoot in aperture priority mode most of the time, but once in a while I'll venture into shutter priority. Rarely do I use full manual with needing to set both aperture and shutter speeds myself.

Same here--there's not much point in using manual mode, because all you're doing is making the exact same adjustment the camera automatically makes in one of the priority modes. It's only if you want to deviate from the camera's recommendation tht manual mode is of any use. At least to me.

 

[beavo451]

We are talking about still images here. Let's ignore video where we have odd and even field lines to worry about.

Video is a collection of still images. Very much relevant.

Shutter speed in itself has zero influence on color. But overall exposue does have an effect. Shutter speed is one of three components of exposure (the others are aperture and ISO).

Confusingly contradictory. By adjusting the the shutter speed, you can change the exposure, which affects the color. You cannot take a picture with just shutter speed. Since all three components work together, each component has an effect on the resulting image.

 

[juanm]

Let's take the analogy of the water glass, where light is seen as water.

We want to fill a glass with the right amount of water, not less, not more = the correct exposure: not too dark, not too light.

We can achieve this by controlling the following factors:

1: Opening the tap more or less (=opening the diaphragm)

2: Controlling the time during which we let the water run (=exposure time)

3: The size of the water glass (=the sensitivity of the sensor/film, counted in ISO)

Some examples...

- Very sensitive film (ISO 3200) = small glass, gets filled very fast, no need for a lot of water (or light...)

- Reduce the exposure time: opening the tap only for a fraction of second.

- Increase the exposure time: let the water run for hours

I hope it's clearer now...

 

[ChrisA]

Confusingly contradictory. By adjusting the the shutter speed, you can change the exposure, which affects the color.

What I ment was that exposure controls how color looks. Exposure is one part of exposure.

If we were using camera that worked in the far infrared or if we were using our Nikon camera with minutes or hours long exposures then yes exposure time WOULD directly effect how color looked because thermal noise would be noticable and thermal noise is proportional to the exposure time and not the exposure. (You get thermal noise even with the lens cap on.)

So what I emnt was that __In the normal case__ exposure time itself does not effect color but it could in far from normal cases.

 

[dogbone]

just wondering if anyone shoots in manual shutter speed, i herd that you can more of a realistic color from the picture by doing this, the only thing is i am completely lost on trying to do so, is there anyway that some one can show me a website on it, i check google and had no luck.

or perhaps some one can explain it to me.

does it really make the color better?

Yes under certain circumstances using manual shutter speed will improve the colour of photographs dramatically. I do it all the time.

It is used in this when one is shooting flash indoors for example. Flash is notoriously harsh and blue and also falls off very quickly which means that objects closer to the flash get overexposed and far objects are underexposed.

However using available tungsten or flouro light is either much too warm (in the case of tungsten) even using white balance.

So what you can do in this situation is to use manual shutter speed to *mix* the ratio of flash and tungsten. A bit of tungsten will take the blue and harshness out of the flash.

How is works is that the shutter speed has no effect on amount of flash reaching the 'film', but it *does* affect the tungsten light. Usually when using flash indoors, if you let the camera work out the exposure and there is not much light around the camera will use a fast exposure of say, 1/250 sec and adjust the flash and aperture to get the right exposure.

But to mix some tungsten in you need (depending on your ISO rating) about 1/20 sec shutter speed. You can do this fully manually or set the camera to shutter speed priority and let the camera work out the flash exposure. Try some experiement using 1/4 to 1/30 sec and see how it goes. You will find that as the speeds get slower you will mix in more warm light but you will also get some blurring from the slow shutter speed, however the blurring will only happen for the tungsten light not the flash light. So if you set the balance to mainly flash say 70% and 30% for the tungsten then shot will be sharp with some warm blurring, which is a very nice effect.

 

[Over Achiever]

But to mix some tungsten in you need (depending on your ISO rating) about 1/20 sec shutter speed. You can do this fully manually or set the camera to shutter speed priority and let the camera work out the flash exposure. Try some experiement using 1/4 to 1/30 sec and see how it goes. You will find that as the speeds get slower you will mix in more warm light but you will also get some blurring from the slow shutter speed, however the blurring will only happen for the tungsten light not the flash light. So if you set the balance to mainly flash say 70% and 30% for the tungsten then shot will be sharp with some warm blurring, which is a very nice effect.

Isn't this similar to using the "fill-flash" setting?

-OA

 

[dogbone]

Isn't this similar to using the "fill-flash" setting?

Yes and no. Yes in that technically it is a flavor of fill flash. But no because it is not used like fill flash which is primarily to increase the dynamic range by lightening shadows in strong sunlight. However in this method it is the tungsten light that fills the areas not exposed fully by the flash.

Fill flash is called so because it 'fills' in the unexposed (or underexposed) shadows. Whereas the above method blankets the whole scene which is primarily lit with flash, in a sort of tungsten wash.