Shooting in Shutter Priority

In my last blog post I talked about my downtown LA night photography with my friend Becky.  In that post I spoke about showing her how to use shutter priority to make light trail photographs of the traffic on the freeway.  I figured it only made sense that my next post be about how to shoot in shutter priority and what that means.  So, consider this a quick primmer on shooting in shutter priority.  

When shooting in shutter priority mode on your DSLR camera you select the shutter speed you want and the camera calculates the proper aperture and ISO automatically using the built-in light meter.  As I mentioned in my “Photography Basics” post, fast shutter speeds will freeze motion and slow shutter speeds will blur motion.  However, generally speaking, if you should select a fast shutter speed, your camera will open the aperture and provide shallow depth of field. Conversely, if you should select a slow shutter speed, the camera will close the aperture and provide greater depth of field.  

As I showed Becky, in the case of shooting night cityscapes, the slower the shutter speed, the brighter and more pronounced the light trails.  (As a point of reference, the photos posted of the light trails was a 15 second exposure.)  I also showed Becky that if you leave the shutter open too long, the lighting at the top of the skyscrapers may become unreadable or too bright in the photograph.  As with all things in life, photography is all about keeping things in balance to achieve your vision.  

Finally, the slower the shutter speed the easier it is to introduce camera shake blur to your image.  As such, if you are going for long exposure shots to show motion blur, and you want to keep portions of the image tack sharp, you must either use a tripod or place your camera on a solid surface that will not allow the camera to shake at all during the exposure.  Even on a tripod a strong gust of wind or a little shaking of a bridge due to passing traffic can introduce motion blur to your shot.  So, because it can be difficult to see slight camera shake on the small rear screens on our cameras, I recommend taking multiple shots at each location.  I consider the few extra minutes as good insurance that I’ll get the image that I am trying to make.  

Have fun, and feel free to put any questions or comments below.