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Photo Tips & Techniques

Why "P" Doesn't Stand For Perfect: Part 1 - Shutter Priority by Russ Burden Ditch the auto settings and experiment with the manual controls on your camera to ensure your images come out the way you want. Article rating: 8.05

Don't just “take a picture,” “make a picture.” Take charge of the settings on your camera so the image turns out the way you want. Don’t let the camera make the decision. While the “P” mode, which actually stands for PROGRAM, provides a PERFECT exposure ninety eight percent of the time, it doesn’t know that in situation A it’s more important that the shutter speed freezes the action or that in situation B, it’s more important that the shutter speed is slow to emphasize movement. While the computers in today’s cameras are amazing and let you capture a great image, the manufacturers still haven’t figured out how to get them to interface with your brain so the final image turns out based on what you want it to look like. This being the case, it’s time to take charge of your settings to wind up with an end result of what you envisioned when you pressed the shutter. This week’s article focuses on utilizing Shutter Priority mode. Next week’s will focus on Aperture Priority.

Shutter Priority:  The “S” setting on your camera gives priority to the shutter speed. Based on where you set it, given the amount of available light, the camera will choose a corresponding aperture to provide a good exposure. The given amount of time the shutter  remains open determines the amount of action that is either stopped or exaggerated. Logically, the faster the shutter speed, the more action stopping potential you have. The longer it stays open, the more the movement will be blurred. Additionally, the direction in which the action takes place has an effect. For instance, if the action is perpendicular to the camera, a much faster shutter speed is needed to freeze it than if the action is coming toward the photographer. ie - when photographing a runner going across the film plane a shutter speed in the neighborhood of 1/ 250th is necessary to stop the action. If the runner is coming directly toward the camera, it can be slowed down to 1/ 60th and freeze the motion.

The speed of the action along with the amount of available light determines how much action can be stopped. What dictates whether or not it can be frozen is dependent upon how fast the subject is traveling in conjunction with the intensity of the light. For instance, if you’re trying to halt the movement of a hundred and fifty mile an hour race car that’s perpendicular to the lens and it’s heavily overcast, there simply won’t be  enough light to do so. Digital photography has given us the luxury of being able to bump up the ISO to very high numbers, but the quality of the image suffers. On the other hand, if it’s bright and sunny, very usable ISO’s can be dialed in and shutter speeds that are fast enough to stop the motion of the race car can be set. What it comes down to is learning how the variables play into a given lighting situation and setting the optimal shutter speed to try to achieve the effect you desire.

While freezing the action shows drama, exaggerating it produces more of an artistic effect. This is where knowing how to control the shutter setting to produce a given effect is important to the intent of the photo. As described above, fast shutter speeds halt movement, so the given is slower ones emphasize it. The idea is to discover the shutter speed that best portrays how much motion you want in the image. The beauty of digital photography is you receive immediate feedback and can make the necessary adjustments on the spot. If the chosen shutter results in too much movement, set it faster. If there’s not enough of an effect, set it slower. Again, your choices are dictated by the speed of the action in conjunction with the amount of available light. The important concept to glean from all the above is to learn how to predict the relationship between the speed of the action and how it will be portrayed in your image based on the shutter speed you utilize. By setting your camera to shutter priority, you take charge of the end result.

To learn more about this topic, join me on one of my Photographic Nature Tours. Visit www.russburdenphotography.com and click on the NATURE TOURS button for more information. Also, pick up a copy of my new book, Amphoto’s Complete Book of Photography. You can purchase a signed copy directly from me or visit your local book store or Amazon. Contact me at rburden@ecentral.com to order your signed copy.

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	Thank you Russ for the pictures and explainations. I keep all of your artilcles so that I can refer back to them. Posted by: M.J. Ethington May 7, 2008 @ 6:50 AM EST
	The page does not seem to render very well. The text is one or, sometimes, two long lines that require continual scrolling to the right. Has anybody testes the web pages using any browser other than IE? Posted by: Richard Schuh May 25, 2008 @ 7:28 PM EST
	Great Article- This does explain more of the cameras usage and how to take better shots of what you want. Posted by: Ron Stein May 28, 2008 @ 7:22 PM EST
	I'd have liked the author to have given the actual shutter spds for the pictures on this page. Just like the ones he had on the Aperture priority. Posted by: renecca Jun 16, 2008 @ 2:56 PM EST

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