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I am an aperture junkie. I love a very small depth of field where just the slightest thing is in focus and everything is all super blurry (that’s the technical term, ya know). It just gives this super soft, warm-fuzzies feel to any picture. My problem is, I pay too much attention to my aperture and not enough to my shutter speeds. Ever wonder why the pictures of the bride and groom running away from their reception are all blurry? Slow shutter speed. Your kid kicking a soccer ball and the only thing in focus is the goal post? Shutter speed. I am little irritated with myself. Shutter speed is the foundation of photography and the last couple shoots I have thrown the basics out the window. Not good. Shutter speed plays a very important role in every picture you take. If you are frustrated about your pictures being blurry, you can do something about it! SLRs and Point and shoots alike give you the ability to change your shutter speed. The faster the shutter speed i.e. 1/125, 1/250, 1/500 the more you will freeze your subject. If you slow down your shutter speed i.e. 1/30, 1/50, or 1/60 the harder it will be to get the subject in focus.
Here is an example from our recent hunting trip. Both images were taken at shutter speeds to slow too hand hold- but I did anyway.
This image was taken at f/22 with 1 second exposure at 160 ISO. As you can see the image is “in focus” but because of my shaky hand there is movement in the image causing it to be out of focus.
Now I reduced my shutter speed to 1/10 a second with f/10 ISO 160. 1/10 still isn’t enough to make an image sharp so I grabbed a poor man’s tripod; a.k.a my shoulder. Resting my camera on my steady shoulder I was able to capture an image in perfect focus and no camera shake.
Here is an example for when you are at home. Babies move a lot! Get your shutter speed up and let the camera do the rest!
This was shot at f/2.8 1/250 of a second at ISO 500
