How do you guys determine shutter speed? (1 Viewer)

Apologies if this sounds like a stupid question but it is the only thing now that I have not grasped now. When taking photos, what makes you determine what shutter to use? I understand that a higher shutter speed is needed for action shots and a very low one can be used for motion photography, which, I don't entirely see how that is a thing but what makes you decided to use a certain shutter speed?

Assuming you are hand holding then a lot depends on what focal length lens you using, has it got IS (or VR) is the Camera a crop camera or a full frame. The conventional wisdom is that your shutter speed should equal or better the focal length of the lens but nowadays that depends on the variables I have already mentioned and not forgetting the individuals ability to hand hold a long lens. Shooting with a tripod means you can shoot at lower shutter speeds than you could by hand holding.
For flight shots you will need a faster shutter speed than for shots of static birds ( say 1/1600 sec or even faster).
With bird photography you often have to juggle shutter speeds with ISO's - If you can get a sharp shot with your set-up at say 1/500 sec then there is no point in shooting at,say, ISO 1600 and 1/2000 sec - far better to reduce the ISO to,say ISO 400 and 1/500 sec as it should give a cleaner image.
P.S. I am assuming you are talking about a DSLR set-up!

I would say that normally with bird photography, it's the faster the better. Roy C has described ways of determining the minimum acceptable shutter speed, but I find I just have to accept what I get, and there's little danger of it ever being too fast.

There are compromises to be made to get a fast shutter. You can do it by setting the ISO high, but if it's too high then it'll be too grainy/noisy. You can use a very wide aperture, but then you have to pay for and carry around a gigantic lens, and if it's too wide then you won't have enough depth of field.

I shoot with my 400mm f5.6 lens wide open all the time, with the camera on aperture priority so that the camera decides the shutter speed. I fiddle with the ISO, and just hope for the best. The only other thing I can do is try to hold it as steady as possible.

One little thing not explicitly mentioned here but in lots of other threads: IS/VR or tripod or other stabilization methods help with your own movements but does nothing if the bird moves. Depending on the type of bird you may want to use different shutter speeds.

Niels

pshute said:

I shoot with my 400mm f5.6 lens wide open all the time, with the camera on aperture priority so that the camera decides the shutter speed.

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This gives a shallow depth of field so that the bird stands out from the background and you can get a nice bokeh when shooting in a suitable location.

djohnston said:

pshute said:

I shoot with my 400mm f5.6 lens wide open all the time, with the camera on aperture priority so that the camera decides the shutter speed.

Click to expand...

This gives a shallow depth of field so that the bird stands out from the background and you can get a nice bokeh when shooting in a suitable location.

Click to expand...

True, but it would be nice to be able to vary it. It's a manual lens, so focus is a bit hit and miss, and a bigger depth of field would help sometimes.

If I stop down, usually for flight shots, I often forget to change it back so I tend to leave it alone.