What Shutter Speed Is Better To Use For Handheld Shooting?

What shutter speed is the best for handheld shooting?

Once you start taking photos there are lots of techniques that become obvious. The first is that  light is necessary to create a nice image. The second thing is that the digital medium has made things much faster and simpler. Lastly, we realise that camera usage is crucial to getting fine pictures. As soon as these three things meet we can begin to feel pleased with our images.

As we understand that different subjects and different scenes need different  settings, we can then go ahead to take striking photos. Shutter speed and f-stop are the two main things we must concern ourselves when aiming for sharp images.  Shutter speed is responsible for the quantity of time that the shutter is right open. Aperture is responsible for depth of field and light coming into the sensor.

Once you begin exploring shutter speed you will quickly realise that there's more to it than letting light in. If you are shooting at night, for instance, and you choose a shutter speed that is overly quick, then you will discover your images will be really underexposed. The shutter simply closes too rapidly to let any decent amount of light in. However, if you select a shutter speed that is too slow, you may run the risk of over exposing your photograph. At times, when our shutter speed is too slow we can produce blurry motion. Blurring the motion is good for special effects, but not good when you want tack sharp shots.

Shutter speed is one of the central factors to image clarity. An accidental blurry image is often as a result of hand holding the camera when the shutter speed is slow. It is really difficult to take a photo with a slow shutter speed and get complete clarity.  You can have the best intentions in the world yet still manage to blur the photograph just by standing there.

So what is the slowest shutter speed you can use when handholding the camera? In my personal experience it lives anywhere between 1/80th and 1/ 50th of a second. I can quite confidently shoot at 1/80th of a second and see no blur. Several people I know can photograph at 1/50th of a second and see no blur. You may be different. Your neighbour or friend may be different to you and me. This won't make it correct or incorrect. It simply means there is a limit that we we can go.

A helpful way to perfect the sharpness in your photographs, with no a tripod, is to set your shutter speed at the same numeric value as your focal length. If you are photographing with a 50 mm lens then aim to shoot slower than 1/ 50th of a second. If you are shooting with a 200 mm lens then try not to shoot less than 1/200th of a second.

The further away your subject is the longer the focal length you will need. The longer the focal length you will require a faster shutter speed is required. This is due to the fact that the more you zoom in the more the picture shakes and moves in the frame. You will have to compensate for this by selecting a quicker shutter speed. One really small motion can entirely distort your image. This comes about simply from breathing or just standing.

If you are working with an SLR you'll be able to observe what focal length you have by looking down the barrel of your lens. Around your lens is a series of numbers. If you have a 24 to 105 mm lens you will see a series of numbers ranging from 24 right through to 105. As you zoom further into your scene you will see a small indicator next to the number. For example if you see this small indicator next to the number 85 then you know that you are shooting at 85 mm.

Matching the shutter speed and focal length numeric value is a most effective way to improve image sharpness. However there is a limit to this. You cannot use this rule for very slow shutter speeds except you utilise a tripod. For example if you are shooting a landscape at 20 mm then I can promise that setting your shutter speed to 20th of a second will not progress your clarity. You need to be practical about how slow you can go with your shutter speed otherwise you need the help of your tripod.

Matching your shutter speed to your focal length to get sharpness may not be observable straight away. You will not be able to see a massive improvement when you take a look at the image on the lcd screen on the slr. Only when you get your photo into Photoshop or Lightroom is when you will see the difference. Once you zoom into your photo you will see distinctions in sharpness. Once you see the sharpness is kept throughout the image you will not need to over sharpen your photos too much in post production.