Welcome to the Brand New & Revised Camera Settings Challenge 2015
Do some of the camera settings intimidate you? Do you want to learn how to develop your photography skills and learn how to use your camera effectively without always going back to the “auto” function? These challenges are for you!
We are going to walk you through various camera settings starting with the basics and build upon them as we move forward. They will no longer be a competition but rather a type of 365 class room community. You can join in and follow which ever challenges interest you.
These are designed for those experienced photographers to share their knowledge with others who are anxious to learn and improve their skills.
This week’s challenge is: Using Shutter Priority to freeze motion.
Explanation:
Most people use shutter priority for one of two reasons, either to “freeze” motion or to “blur” motion. This week we will concentrate on “freezing” motion. Building on last week’s lesson continue to use shutter priority, leave ISO in auto, and allow the camera to choose your aperture. Also no flash. We are not going to set a specific shutter speed. The challenge this week is to figure out what the correct shutter speed is for your situation.
A few hints:
1. Person walking 1/125-1/250
2. Person running/sports 1/500-1/2000
3. Bird-in-flight 1/800-1/2000
4. Race car 1/1000-1/8000
Additional Tips:
1. This is a challenge that is easier with good light. If you are working indoors try starting out with a subject that is moving slower (you will not need as fast a shutter speed). As you increase your shutter speed you will need more light.
2. The faster your subject is moving the faster shutter speed needed to freeze motion.
3. If your subject is moving across your frame (i.e. from left to right), you will need a faster shutter speed than if your subject is coming straight toward you. If your subject is moving on an angled trajectory, either toward or away from you, you will be able to use a slower shutter speed.
4. The closer your subject is to you the faster the shutter speed needed.
5. For those of you that cannot use “auto” ISO start with ISO 400 and we will work from there. If you are not getting the proper exposure (photo is too dark) bump up your ISO and try again.
6. Keep an eye on your viewfinder for warnings. My nikon will change my aperture reading from an f/ number to “lo”, I believe that the canons flash a warning. These warning tell you that your shot is underexposed. If this happens lower your speed a little and try again.
7. In last week’s challenge we discussed the use of IS/VR to help with camera shake. IS/VR only helps with stabilizing camera shake it will not help you “freeze” motion.
Download your photos and look at them.
1. Were you able to freeze the motion.
2. Was the motion completely frozen or only partially. i.e. Bird’s body was in focus but wings were not.
3. Are you happy with your shot.
Experienced photographers who are knowledgeable in this particular setting are encouraged to offer “kind and constructive” suggestions on the posted entries. Those entering this challenge want to learn and improve.
This challenge starts today, Monday, January 26 and lasts until Sunday, February 1. Please use the tag: camerasavvy-fastshutterspeed
For these challenges we encourage you to post your photo(s) in this thread to receive feedback and/or tips on what could be done to possibly improve the image (based on this specific challenge). We will not have a voting but we will select a few honorable mentions at the end of the challenge.
ASK QUESTIONS we are all here to help you learn!
Expect to receive constructive suggestions on how to improve your skills.
How to post your photo on this link:
1) Go to your page that has the photo you wish to post.
2) Click on the three dots, and copy the code from the pop up box
3) Return to this thread and paste the code under comments
@alinz Cool! Something more to try for, and you see it as the first example, the plane, in the original post, is to *stop* the forward motion, but to keep some blur on the rotors/propellers. You'd probably want to drop the shutter to something like 1/200, slower than the plane example because the main rotors are so large, but perhaps fast enough to stop the main motion.
Please can you tag me in the future tags. I have been following these with interest when I find them. I had expressed an interest when they first started but seem to have been missed off. Thanks.
It definitely stopped the motion - in fact no sense of motion - guess I need to slow it down some from the 1/2000 (or get the bus driver to go faster!) Was surprised there was not more noise a 1600 - that's usually a problem for me.
A shot of the disk on a wind chime blowing in the wind.
Shutter speed 1/900
Aperture: f/2.2
ISO Speed: 400
Focal Length: 7.1 mm
I slowed the shutter down and got some blur but not really the motion.
We had fireworks for the Australia Day celebration last night, so I never took photos before of fireworks. Took the photos without a tripod, but I decrease my shutter speed towards the end of the 10min fireworks as it was getting blurry or a little bit dark due to changing of the night sky.
Canon 700D
F/ 5.6 1/100 ISO was set to Auto but it changed to 6400
ISO 200 .... 45mm ..... f/9 ..... 1/800
Camera: Lumix DMC-GH4
Lense: 45-200mm
Iso & Appeture set to auto.
I had camera on auto focus, but I'm not sure if the seagull is in correct focus.
Are there any tips to focusing on flying birds. I found it really difficult to try and capture one in flight with the zoom, they just moved too fast. I ended up capturing shot at 45mm and cropped all the sky away just to get a closeup of him.
@deborah63 Hi Debbie. You've done really well with this shot. Birds in flight are really hard to get. If your camera allows you to set the autofocus in different ways then increase the area of autofocus for birds in flight. Then the camera is better able to track the bird (if you've focused on it to start with). The easiest way to practice for birds in flight is getting shots on take off so you are already focused on the bird before it flies.
@flyrobin We'll talk about Auto Focus in a few weeks. Fast moving subjects can be handled by what is generically termed "focus tracking." Different cameras call it different things and have slightly different ways to implement it. I'll look into your Lumix GH4 and let you know. Look in your manual for terms like "Dynamic AF Area" and "Auto Focus Mode."
@leestevo
Beautiful fireworks Lee-Ann. Love the light reflecting off the water. I'm surprised how many light trails you got with 1/100 sec. shot. I imagine that f/5.6 is as wide as your lens will go so your camera bumped the ISO up to help lighten the shot.
@bizziebeeme
Nice collection of shots, Loupy-Lou. Birds in flight are always challenging especially if the light is not great. Robyn ( @flyrobin ) had a great idea, to shoot them as they take off, because you can pre-focus.
@camerasavvy-fastshutterspeed My attempt today was to get the part of the fan closest to the motor stopped while leaving the outer edges of the blades slightly motion blurred. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough light to get the detail I wanted without noise from the high ISO.
@camerasavvy@flyrobin @ frankhymus
1/1000, f/14m ISO 1600
Camera Lumix DMC-GH4
Focal Length 45mm
Headed to the beach to practice fast shutter speed with the waves.
Although I think I had to SS high enough to freeze the water, I'm still not entirely happy with the focus on the waves. When I zoom in to sections it's blurry.
Thanks for the previous info on focus Robyn and Frank. I eagerly await the tutorials on focus and in the mean-time I'll have a read of my user manual.
Probably a stupid question ...... but is there such as thing as setting your camera speed too high. Will you compromise the quality of photo if you go way over the top with camera speed.
@deborah63 Not a stupid question - a very interesting one!! Others feel free to chime in but my answer would be: A high shutter speed in itself will not compromise the quality of your shot. However, as we will cover in detail in the coming weeks, the reciprocal nature of the triangle (SS, Aperture and ISO) means that in any given lighting situation, whenever you increase one, you decrease another to maintain correct exposure. So if you are only letting light in for a tiny fraction of a second, your aperture might open wide to let as much light in as possible for that tiny fraction, or the ISO might increase to compensate, or both. If you are in good light, neither of these should increase so much as to be a problem. But in poorer light, a high ISO means a grainier image, and depending on your lens and how you are using it, it might not be at its sharpest at its widest aperture.
@deborah63 Love your waves btw :) Particularly bottom left I think is my favourite, not only do you have lots of tiny splashy bits but the white stands out beautifully against the darker blue water behind it. Must have been on just the right angle :)
here is my first try at this challenge. I had to crop these so you could actually see my little poodle better. I hope to try again tomorrow.
Poodle Collage - she gets what I call the zoomies a lot.
Camera: Nikon D3200
Setting: S Mode - no flash
Lens: 18-55 - Focal Length 55mm
All photos are
1/640, f5.6, ISO-100
Hm, finding this a tough challenge for this week - it's far too cold to go outside, and inside there's not enough light for fast shutter speeds. Going to have to get creative...
@sarahsthreads indoor suggestions - splash something in a glass of water, a pet, children jumping, bouncy ball in mid air use broom stick to knock it off the counter or table - not easy though, I once took photos of the water splashes inside my washing machine as water splashed in, pouring coffee into a coffee cup, pouring cereal into a bowl, etc. etc.
I've got the technique of fast shutter speeds down. This little bird is captured quite nicely, but there is a shadow or distortion from a tree branch that runs right thru his face. It is highly distracting. I'm sure there is a way in photo shop to remove this, anyone know how? Help!!
Shutterspeed 1/4000
Aperture f/5
ISO 1000
Focal length 195 mm
@sarahsthreads
I know I labelled this challenge "high speed" but our main goal is to help you learn to "freeze" motion. It's really fun to do the "high speed" shots but for a lot of people it is just as important to be able to "freeze" the motion of their kids (or animals) when they are photographing indoors. So this is the perfect week to practice. Try photographing your kids playing in the house. What speed do you need to use to get a good shot. The photo you took on 1/16/15 is a perfect example. Gorgeous shot. Your son is in focus except for his hands. What speed would it take to get his hands in focus also. That shot was at 1/100 would 1/160 be fast enough? I sometimes take a couple of table lamps and put them close by to give me extra light.
@deborah63
I think your shots look great. Motion shots are very subjective. In the plane photo above, the plane's motion is "frozen" but the propeller is not. Photo's don't look as "static" if there is some motion blur.
To answer your question about your shutter speed being too fast. I agree with Alison. I am uploading a photo to show what happens if you allow your ISO to go too high. Bear in mind I have an older camera, the newer cameras process higher ISO's much better. I was shooting my sister's foster kittens indoors (ISO 1600) and forgot to put the ISO back down when I left for a weekend trip. If you go to the original photo page, look under photo details for "sizes". Click on that and go down to the bottom, where it says "original". Highlight the line that starts with "http". Copy and paste that into your browser. Look at the detail in the sky. Pretty bad. We will be discussing ISO in the next few weeks.
@thejazzyj
Great shot Jazz. I think a slightly higher shutter speed would have helped. Without knowing all of your equipment, I think you could have opened your aperture a little (maybe f/16), to get that higher speed, and still had good dof.
@dianen
Nicely focused Diane. I find it much harder to clone out areas that are blurred rather than sharply defined. I think you would have to mask that area and then do some saturation adjustments. There is a group called @Sandbox365 that does sessions on post editing.
Busted the squirrel at the bird feeder - he (she?) went flying ... twice
Camera OM-D E-M10
Shutter speed 1250
F 5.6 - 4.7 - 4.8
ISO 1600
Focal length 145 - 82 - 74
@dianen Hi Diane, I've got no advice for you as to how to photoshop this out, but I can tell you what (I think!) it is ... your camera has chosen a large aperture (small number) to compensate for the fact that the shutter speed is very fast (to let as much light in as possible in that fraction of a second). Along with large apertures comes small depth of field (DOF), which means that only the thing you have focussed on (and anything in the frame the same distance from your camera) will be sharp. Everything in front of or behind it will be very blurred. You can notice those lovely cloudy shapes in the background of your shot, and what you are seeing is a few stalks sticking up in the foreground, all nicely blurred and your bird in beautiful sharp focus. We will be covering aperture in the coming weeks, but re this image, had you used a smaller aperture, those stalks would have been far clearer and far more distracting. Yes, it's a shame they collide with the bird, so the lesson is to be aware of what's in your foreground and try to frame it slightly this way or that. But I think there's loads to love about this shot, well done :)
@aliha You are right. I do think they are the branches. Unfortunately, with captures such as this...there is little to no framing...just snapping! That little bird landed and took off again in less than a second. I was happy to have gotten him as sharply as I did. I just hoped getting rid of the distraction in PS was easier! :( You can never pose wild animals. I guess I just have to accept that sometimes things like this will get in the way! Thanks for the help/explanation. I am very comfortable with shutter priority and not so much with aperture. Maybe this will stick in my brain next time! :) I guess if I had a slower shutter speed the branch would have been solid and much more of a "shot wrecker" than this shadow!
@dianen Yes, definitely. That's what I mean about this being a great shot - yes it's a pity those branches are there, but under the circumstances (and I'm aware this would have been a snap-when-the-opportunity-is-right moment!) there are so many things "right" about the way this shot is captured, and other than framing differently, this is probably the best result possible :)
Top left: 1/125, f/9, ISO 100; Bottom right: 1/4000, f/5.6, ISO 1000
I guess I should have gone to slower shutter speeds to determine when the motion was not stopped.
I need to try this again. I'm not sure I learned what I needed to.
Per se, nothing negative about shooting at a super high speed if that's what you want to stop. You will drive the ISO and/or the Aperture high/wide to get the same amount of total light, and that might not be what you want. ISO should be as low as you possibly can make it for what else you need - even with the best cameras, ISO above 1600 (and above 400 for average "enthusiast" DSLRs) will introduce noise and that can be distracting/ugly to leave in or leave the image a little flat if you have to blur it/remove it much in post. And the wider the aperture the narrower will be your DoF, and that mightn't be what you want either. All about these compromises in the next few weeks. Stay tuned.
@randystreat HI Kathy! Glad you can join in over the next few weeks. The windmill might not be turning very fast since you have effectively "stopped" its rotation at only 1/125. If you do lengthen the shutter on a shot like this (strong back light) to where the motion just begins to blur, you will drive the aperture smaller (higher number) and if this got to something like f/18, you might run into what we call "diffraction" effects and the image could "soften" out.
Notice too, for the challenge two weeks out, your aperture is about 1 1/2 f-stops wider in the first, even with the higher ISO, and can you see that the background branches are somewhat more blurred than in the second? We'll talk about that in two weeks when we concentrate on aperture specifically though. For this week, it's just on SS, and as you say, little (no) appreciable difference, and at this small size, any "noise" in the first (4 weeks out we'll talk about that too) is invisible.
I'm puzzled that if you're using the shutter speed priority setting and the ISO is on automatic, why is seems to choose higher ISO's than I would think necessary - I still feel this is a little brighter than necessary.
@milaniet It would seem that way for many people. The camera's algorithms are not perfect, are a matter of "taste" even, and sometimes not even known exactly outside the manufacturer's R&D department. :) You'll learn over time as you are aware of all of these things exactly how your camera will react. Other cameras may indeed react differently but that shouldn't matter for you; you'll eventually take full (or fuller) control of the settings of your camera. For this challenge, you are just using one and leaving the camera work out the other two to the best of its ability. Which, as you see, can be less than optimal for a particular type of shot in particular light conditions.
BTW, neat that you got the girls stopped in the air.
Camera settings challenge - freezing motion. Frustrating day at the pet shop trying to get some shots. It was too dark in there to get much above 1/320. Also, couldn't get the camera to focus quickly enough for me to catch the fish. Pre-focusing didn't work either. Shooting through dirty glass containers sucks. I see now that I need to get outside (when it's warmer) and try to get some shots in full light. The only decent shots I got were of some birds that were right by the window. May post them later tonight or tomorrow. Any advice beyond this that you can give me would be much appreciated! Thank you!
@juliedduncan
Hi Julie. You are being way too hard on yourself. Photographing fish is almost worse than photographing birds. It looks like you have a nice focus on his mouth and eye. Not as sharp of a focus on the rest of his body but its not bad. A couple of things are happening. First you have a relatively wide aperture (f/5.6) which gives you are much narrower depth of field. We will be discussing this in the next couple of weeks. Second, at ISO 6400 you are developing a fair amount of digital noise. ISO is also coming in the next couple of weeks.
Shooting high speed indoors is a challenge. Flash can help with some of the issues but we wanted you to learn how your camera works before introducing flash. Btw, flash would not help in this situation because of the reflective nature of glass.
Great shot under challenging conditions.
@lstasel Hi, Laura! Thank you so much! I did notice the narrow dof and the noise, but don't know how to adjust for that yet. I am really looking forward to learning more about f-stop and ISO in the coming weeks. Spring is coming, with more opportunities for shooting living things outside (instead of all the dead weeds - ha ha!). Thanks again! I appreciate your kind encouragement and helpful instruction! (P.S. I'm taking notes on all of this.) ;)
I am happy with this photo. Oliver is in focus (first attempts the camera had focussed on the agapanthus), and I have managed to freeze him in the upward position so that you can sense that he is peddling to go uphill.
He was more interested though in the ones where I tried to capture the blur!
@milaniet@frankhymus as Frank says, what your camera chose for ISO is not hugely important for this exercise, but your question did make me wonder what metering your camera is set for? i will not remember which one is which without checking, but i think if you're on the setting that meters to where you are setting your focus (as opposed to evaluating the light all around your subject), it may work to expose for that specific point... so if you were focussing on the dark blue, the camera may have boosted ISO as a result... regardless of the lighting, it's a great fun shot and so cool you caught them both airborne :)
@miata2u
Hi Peggy. Plenty of time to join the challenge. It will go through Sunday evening with the next challenge starting Monday.
Lovely yellow fish. If you would like post your photo details also. That way everyone can see what camera speed, aperture and ISO you used to get your results.
Another shot for the shutter speed challenge to stop motion. Had to wait for the wind to gust and managed to stop the motion of the chime tube and striker, but left a little blur in the tail piece.
@milaniet I think Northy @northy was asking about the "metering mode." For Canon that's Evaluative, Spot Weighted or Center Weighted. For Nikon, that's Matrix, Spot Weighted, Center Weighted. I think we might talk more about this later, but very briefly Evaluative/Matrix = the camera looks across the whole frame for metering reference, Spot Weighted = the camera pays most attention to a very small spot (for Nikon it's the focus point, I don't know about Canon but I have read that is not the way they do it) and Center Weighted = the camera pays most attention to about 25% in the center of the frame. Evaluative/Matrix is almost certainly the default, unless you have consciously changed it at some time.
@milaniet Oh! Seems like @frankhymus and @northy have it covered :) I was thinking the same thing, that maybe your camera is measuring the light only on your subject (the centre of the frame), which is quite dark compared to the rest of the frame. It's trying to expose that "correctly", and hence everything else seems very bright.
Another try at this challenge. I made a collage again, because I couldn't pick just 1 to share.
Camera: Nikon Coolpix P520
Setting: S Mode
Left to right...
Photo 1 - My dog was running downhill chasing the kids when sledding. Photo is cropped
Focal Length 19mm
1/640...f5.2...ISO-80
Photo 2 - Poodle Running- I can't figure out if that i snow around her face from the blowing wind or motion blur, or a combination. Yes, she is covered in snowballs. When she plays in the snow she gets covered in snowballs. Photo is cropped
Focal Length 71mm
1/640...f4.8...ISO-80
3rd photo - Snowball fun - I see the motion stopped in many place, my daughters foot, the snowball and finally my adorable puppy mid jump. Photo is cropped.
Focal Length 5mm
1/640...f4.9...ISO-80
Overall I think I did pretty well with this challenge.
I tried this again today. It was a little windier so the difference was much more noticeable.
I was able to fully stop the motion. I like the windmill showing the blurry movement. Something I learned was that I had to use manual focus and focused on the inside of the wheel (pre-focus) to get the blades sharp.
@flyrobin I agree about the birds in flight. I caught one or two quite by accident. The windmill (above) is next to some bird feeders. I couldn't keep up with them!
@frankhymus Frank, yes I did notice that the f-stops and ISO change and understand they do that to compensate for the change in shutter speed. I'm not sure I've internalized this yet, though.
@randystreat Two great shots Kathy. #1 is a perfect example of stop motion. I really like #2. The frame of the windmill is in focus and you have the blur of the blades. We will be working on slow shutter speeds/ blur next week.
It takes a while to get a feel for how your camera processes all of the information.
Shutter speed 1/1250; f2.8, ISO 500.
This was a very quick, opportunistic shot. Just shot with the shutter speed that was already set, ie 1/1250. ISO at 500 is probably too grainy and if I had had more time I would have lowered the shutter speed.
managed to capture this passing truck for the Stop Motion shutter speed challenge.
Camera was hand held and set to shutter priority.
Shutter speed 1/1600
Aperture 4.0
ISO (on auto) 320
I found this one more difficult to focus than the truck.
I'm guessing this is because, unlike the truck, not all of the subject is moving at exactly the same speed. My focus is definitely worse on her legs.
Shutter speed 1/250
Aperture 4.5
ISO (On Auto) 110
@adayinmallacoota Both beautiful shots. Nice and sharp. Love the ocean spray in the first shot. Cute little bird. I am surprised at the noise in the second, most of the newer cameras do a good job at ISO 500. I think a little noise reduction in processing would fix it.
@thistle Great job on the truck. I agree on your second shot. Your ISO was still pretty low so you could have increased your shutter speed a little and still had good results.
s/speed 1/600 Av 6.3, iso 1250, fl 92mm
Tried for a closer shot, slightly cropped at edges. Wasnt sure if it was totally in focus, although birds mostly looked frozen.
Noticed in all these shots the aperture and iso changed unlike the slower speed where the aperture did the work. Its been lots of fun!
7
I know I am late with this one but not sure how to get rid of the blue on hands and feet. Seems like I stopped the rest of the action. Thanks for the help.
@miata2u At 1/50th of a second your shutter speed isn't fast enough to freeze the hands and feet, you'll need 1/125th or maybe even 1/250th. Still a good mid-air catch though :)
This is Teddy - I got him to 'pose' by tricking him, he was waiting for me to throw his ball for him. The photo on the left was the Fastest Shutter Speed 1/2500, f4.5, ISO 250. The photo on the right was the Slowest Shutter Speed 1/20 f4.5 ISO 100. I like the Fastest one best, in his tail you can see the individual hairs but they still have the curved shape of the movement of the 'wag''.
@jennywren Great bunch of shots Jen. Love the water shot. The birds look like they are floating in the air in the last shot. Your camera did a good job balancing shutter speed, aperture and ISO to get a good exposure.
@mahjongfan Perfect timing Sue. Focus looks great. You can read the writing on the snow mobiles. Love that you can see the snow being kicked up behind them.
For this shot I used a shutter speed of 1/250 since the chickens weren't running too fast. The camera set the aperture at 6 and the ISO at 100. Taken outside in the afternoon sun I expected the ISO to be at 100.
Later, the same afternoon as taking the chicken shot, I used different shutter speeds to stop the motion of the water and to see the results of the different settings. At 1/3200 the camera set the aperture at 5 and the ISO at 6400. It is quite dark. At 1/1600 the camera set the aperture at 5 and the ISO at 5000. This one is a bit lighter than the first. At 1/500 the camera set the aperture at 5 and the ISO at 1600. This lightened up the photo even though it was late in the afternoon and beginning to get dark.
@dianen Love that dog in mid-air! Great subject, I think it works well!
@cdean1956 Love this idea. What would be really fantastic is if you could capture it on a bit more of an angle so that we really know it is moving (you know, so it couldn't be confused with a still shot of the chime still or moving only very little). You would require a much faster shutter for that I suspect than 1/80 (and a higher ISO to enable it). A couple of extra tips, if you were to try this one again, is to 1) see if you can find a continuous-shooting (rapid-fire) setting so that you can focus once, and then fire off a bunch of shots as the chime is moving, and 2) ... don't wait for the wind ... just give it a swing ;)
@kalm Nice series :) I had a random thought at some point that kicking snowballs would be a great subject for this challenge! (as I sit here in stifling heat!) I have a tip not-so-much technique-related, but for me I find it a bit hard to see the details of each shot in a collage. You may already know this but it is possible to post new photos to old dates (just manually enter the date when you upload) - we don't care how many photos you enter, the more the merrier if you want! Up to you :)
@randystreat Hi Kathy, I think I agree with you! Something to learn and observe I guess, which moving subjects work best in photographs with the motion stopped and which work best with some blur (we are actually going to do this next week!). As an example, I LOVE a good shot of a sportsperson in mid-flight with sweat flying off, stopped completely still. Maybe because a windmill COULD be sitting still, stopping the motion doesn't necessarily look spectacular, even though you may have nailed a technique. So I agree - I think I prefer the one with a bit of blur :)
@adayinmallacoota Hi again! Great work on the waves and the spray, love it. Do you have a longer lens that you could get in close with? I think that would really accentuate the stopped motion of the water :) On the bird ... it appears as though it has landed? So the quick shutter speed is less of a necessity here. But you are right, sometimes no time to change settings :) I think it's a good shot! Is it heavily cropped? Might be what's accentuating the noise?
@aliha Thanks for the feedback. I don't have a longer lens and I was a fair distance away (ie on land and dry :) The bird shot was cropped but the original size was noisy too. You're right, the bird was already landed so fast shutter speed probably not necessary. I appreciate your comments and feedback - all food for thought.
@miata2u Hi Peggy, @iqscotland is right - you will need a much faster shutter speed than 1/50s. This is really more like the speeds we were working with last week - something you can safely hand-hold without camera shake, OR motion blur if it's a fairly still subject. The aim of this challenge is to work with fast-moving subjects and accordingly much faster shutter speeds than this.
However, I can see that you have your ISO cranked right up in this shot, which means (assuming you were to try to re-shoot this in the same spot and with the same amount of light) that it's not necessarily as simple as just making the shutter speed faster. Your aperture is at 6.3 and can I guess you are using an 18-55mm lens? (We will get into greater depth as we go with the triangle of SS, aperture and ISO, but you may already know that if you increase one (to maintain the same exposure) you then need to decrease another, if that makes sense.) So your ISO is already maxed out? And you could probably open your aperture slightly to 4.5 maybe? But that will only let you increase your shutter to 1/100 which is probably still not quick enough.
Anyway I am writing a lot of words here but my point is, what you REALLY need is more light!! That is what will enable you to get that faster shutter speed. Can you get outside (in the snow)?? Or a covered porch or even just a larger window and a slightly different angle? I realise today is technically the last day for this challenge but I would love to see the results if you have another go :)
@camerasavvy Have just come across this challenge and it looks like a great way to improve my skills. What a great job you are doing! Please add me to the list if you are sending any more related messages...
@tahoemb Great idea with your chickens. To fully freeze the action you would probably need 1/500 which should be achievable because your ISO was at 100. I know we asked you not to use flash for this challenge but a little fill flash ( we will cover this subject later ) would lighten up the chicken's faces.
Your water shots turned out well. A little dark, like you said. If you shoot RAW a lot of that detail is still available. You should do this shot again for next weeks challenge, slow shutter speeds.
@juliedduncan Hi Julie. Birds in flight are always challenging, especially when you are focusing that closely. @flyrobin suggested focusing on the bird while it is not in motion, so you are ready when he takes off. Is your photo cropped and are you shooting through a window? If you are shooting through a window get your lens as close to the glass as you can. That will help some with clarity. Also, great shot from today. Love the bokeh, nice focus and exposure.
@lstasel Hello, Laura! Thank you for your suggestions and observations. I will try it! (Although, maybe on a different bird feeder since this one is only about a foot from the window - ha ha ha!) ;) Thanks again for taking the time to help me out - I really appreciate it! :)
A typical setting for airplane spotting photography. We start setting apperture to f:8, the best setting for common zoom lens from center to corners of the lens, then we set the speed from 1/500s and beyond.
If we wished to blur the movement of blades of a propeller we must down the speed to 1/125s or 1/250s. But then we must choose the vantage point and track the airplane / helicopter with care not to blurring him.
It didn't stop the motion of the flags, but at 1/80s I really like the way the snow streaked across the photo. Hard to see in the collage, but if you view the large image you can. The flags were pretty well stopped at 1/200s, but my daughter was less than enthused about waving flags during a snow storm. :)
@mzbull I don't know if your lens choice is affecting your shot. ISO and aperture look fine. A slightly faster shutter speed would have helped freeze the action, probably increasing the ISO a little but that should not have affected the quality. I like that you can see that he is landing in the fountain. To bad he didn't land facing you but still a very interesting shot.
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It is still Sunday Feb 1 here so here is my post. I had a good time playing with shutter speeds for both birds and ocean splashes but ultimately decided to post this one. I shot this at 1/640 sec at 300mm ISO 100 f/7.1 I was able to freeze the bird entirely and I am pretty happy with the shot. It is interesting that the 1/800 shots also froze the bird but they were not as clearly focused as the 1/640 shots. Maybe they had a tail wind and were going faster, I am just not sure.
This shot is at 1/1600, f/5.6 and ISO 125. 300mm lens on a Sony A230. No enhancements, only cropping. The shots at 1/2000 were a bit sharper but the color seemed off. At that speed the f-stop could not compensate. For these waves and this challenge, it seems 1/1600 was the correct speed.
@rosiekerr Yes Rosie, looks like you didn't really have enough light to get any faster than 1/320. I wonder if you could try replicating this in better light? My other comment is that at f/2.8, you have a very narrow depth of field (i.e. what is in focus). To me this looks just slightly out of focus, and my guess is that if it was hand-held, you have probably moved just slightly forwards or backwards between focussing the shot and taking it, so now your in-focus bit is slightly behind or in front of your subject. But there is of course a lot to love about this shot too ... your timing is fantastic and nice light reflections too.
@oly I'm with Laura - great shot! I especially love how (with your narrow depth of field at f/5.6) the wave and spray are perfectly in focus and the ocean behind is nice and soft. Coupled with the contrast of the spray catching the light and the ocean being darker as well, I think it's a highly effective shot. The only danger I can see is the hours you could spend trying to catch the MOST spectacular wave, or a windsurfer or some such ... :)
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1/4000 F7.1 ISO200
1/2000 F14 ISO 200
It definitely stopped the motion - in fact no sense of motion - guess I need to slow it down some from the 1/2000 (or get the bus driver to go faster!) Was surprised there was not more noise a 1600 - that's usually a problem for me.
Shutter speed 1/900
Aperture: f/2.2
ISO Speed: 400
Focal Length: 7.1 mm
I slowed the shutter down and got some blur but not really the motion.
I'll post that too.
ISO Speed:400
Focal Length: 7.1 mm
Great job Susan. Perfectly in focus. Nice dof and lighting also.
Canon 700D
F/ 5.6 1/100 ISO was set to Auto but it changed to 6400
ISO 200 .... 45mm ..... f/9 ..... 1/800
Camera: Lumix DMC-GH4
Lense: 45-200mm
Iso & Appeture set to auto.
I had camera on auto focus, but I'm not sure if the seagull is in correct focus.
Are there any tips to focusing on flying birds. I found it really difficult to try and capture one in flight with the zoom, they just moved too fast. I ended up capturing shot at 45mm and cropped all the sky away just to get a closeup of him.
Any help would be appreciated.
This is an example of what I mean Debbie, taken a few days before this thread started
Taken with the Canon SX510 on Tv setting 1000. All taken at London zoo.
1/1000, f/14.0, ISO 640, Focal Length 60mm
Beautiful fireworks Lee-Ann. Love the light reflecting off the water. I'm surprised how many light trails you got with 1/100 sec. shot. I imagine that f/5.6 is as wide as your lens will go so your camera bumped the ISO up to help lighten the shot.
Nice collection of shots, Loupy-Lou. Birds in flight are always challenging especially if the light is not great. Robyn ( @flyrobin ) had a great idea, to shoot them as they take off, because you can pre-focus.
1/500, f/3.5, ISO 6400
1/1000, f/14m ISO 1600
Camera Lumix DMC-GH4
Focal Length 45mm
Headed to the beach to practice fast shutter speed with the waves.
Although I think I had to SS high enough to freeze the water, I'm still not entirely happy with the focus on the waves. When I zoom in to sections it's blurry.
Thanks for the previous info on focus Robyn and Frank. I eagerly await the tutorials on focus and in the mean-time I'll have a read of my user manual.
Probably a stupid question ...... but is there such as thing as setting your camera speed too high. Will you compromise the quality of photo if you go way over the top with camera speed.
Any of that make sense? :)
Poodle Collage - she gets what I call the zoomies a lot.
Camera: Nikon D3200
Setting: S Mode - no flash
Lens: 18-55 - Focal Length 55mm
All photos are
1/640, f5.6, ISO-100
I've got the technique of fast shutter speeds down. This little bird is captured quite nicely, but there is a shadow or distortion from a tree branch that runs right thru his face. It is highly distracting. I'm sure there is a way in photo shop to remove this, anyone know how? Help!!
Shutterspeed 1/4000
Aperture f/5
ISO 1000
Focal length 195 mm
I know I labelled this challenge "high speed" but our main goal is to help you learn to "freeze" motion. It's really fun to do the "high speed" shots but for a lot of people it is just as important to be able to "freeze" the motion of their kids (or animals) when they are photographing indoors. So this is the perfect week to practice. Try photographing your kids playing in the house. What speed do you need to use to get a good shot. The photo you took on 1/16/15 is a perfect example. Gorgeous shot. Your son is in focus except for his hands. What speed would it take to get his hands in focus also. That shot was at 1/100 would 1/160 be fast enough? I sometimes take a couple of table lamps and put them close by to give me extra light.
I think your shots look great. Motion shots are very subjective. In the plane photo above, the plane's motion is "frozen" but the propeller is not. Photo's don't look as "static" if there is some motion blur.
To answer your question about your shutter speed being too fast. I agree with Alison. I am uploading a photo to show what happens if you allow your ISO to go too high. Bear in mind I have an older camera, the newer cameras process higher ISO's much better. I was shooting my sister's foster kittens indoors (ISO 1600) and forgot to put the ISO back down when I left for a weekend trip. If you go to the original photo page, look under photo details for "sizes". Click on that and go down to the bottom, where it says "original". Highlight the line that starts with "http". Copy and paste that into your browser. Look at the detail in the sky. Pretty bad. We will be discussing ISO in the next few weeks.
Great shot Jazz. I think a slightly higher shutter speed would have helped. Without knowing all of your equipment, I think you could have opened your aperture a little (maybe f/16), to get that higher speed, and still had good dof.
Very cute shots Kim.
Nicely focused Diane. I find it much harder to clone out areas that are blurred rather than sharply defined. I think you would have to mask that area and then do some saturation adjustments. There is a group called @Sandbox365 that does sessions on post editing.
Was wishing for more of a wind rather than a breeze but got what I had.
Camera OM-D E-M10
Shutter speed 1250
F 5.6 - 4.7 - 4.8
ISO 1600
Focal length 145 - 82 - 74
Good job Milanie. The flag is nicely focused but you still get a sense of motion.
Nice series of shots. Squirrels are so much fun to photograph. Focus looks good on #1. Love #2. It looks like he is doing a flip.
I guess I should have gone to slower shutter speeds to determine when the motion was not stopped.
I need to try this again. I'm not sure I learned what I needed to.
Notice too, for the challenge two weeks out, your aperture is about 1 1/2 f-stops wider in the first, even with the higher ISO, and can you see that the background branches are somewhat more blurred than in the second? We'll talk about that in two weeks when we concentrate on aperture specifically though. For this week, it's just on SS, and as you say, little (no) appreciable difference, and at this small size, any "noise" in the first (4 weeks out we'll talk about that too) is invisible.
I'm puzzled that if you're using the shutter speed priority setting and the ISO is on automatic, why is seems to choose higher ISO's than I would think necessary - I still feel this is a little brighter than necessary.
BTW, neat that you got the girls stopped in the air.
Camera settings challenge - freezing motion. Frustrating day at the pet shop trying to get some shots. It was too dark in there to get much above 1/320. Also, couldn't get the camera to focus quickly enough for me to catch the fish. Pre-focusing didn't work either. Shooting through dirty glass containers sucks. I see now that I need to get outside (when it's warmer) and try to get some shots in full light. The only decent shots I got were of some birds that were right by the window. May post them later tonight or tomorrow. Any advice beyond this that you can give me would be much appreciated! Thank you!
Hi Julie. You are being way too hard on yourself. Photographing fish is almost worse than photographing birds. It looks like you have a nice focus on his mouth and eye. Not as sharp of a focus on the rest of his body but its not bad. A couple of things are happening. First you have a relatively wide aperture (f/5.6) which gives you are much narrower depth of field. We will be discussing this in the next couple of weeks. Second, at ISO 6400 you are developing a fair amount of digital noise. ISO is also coming in the next couple of weeks.
Shooting high speed indoors is a challenge. Flash can help with some of the issues but we wanted you to learn how your camera works before introducing flash. Btw, flash would not help in this situation because of the reflective nature of glass.
Great shot under challenging conditions.
I am happy with this photo. Oliver is in focus (first attempts the camera had focussed on the agapanthus), and I have managed to freeze him in the upward position so that you can sense that he is peddling to go uphill.
He was more interested though in the ones where I tried to capture the blur!
Great shot Helen. Nice focus on his face. At 1/800 you had some good light. Also f/5.6 for aperture and ISO was 320 so very little noise.
He will be happy to know that slow shutter speeds and blur are next week.
Great shot Milanie. Love how both girls are in the air.
Hi Peggy. Plenty of time to join the challenge. It will go through Sunday evening with the next challenge starting Monday.
Lovely yellow fish. If you would like post your photo details also. That way everyone can see what camera speed, aperture and ISO you used to get your results.
Hi Diane. Wonderful shot, he looks like he is having a great time.
1/80, f/4.5, ISO 250
Camera: Nikon Coolpix P520
Setting: S Mode
Left to right...
Photo 1 - My dog was running downhill chasing the kids when sledding. Photo is cropped
Focal Length 19mm
1/640...f5.2...ISO-80
Photo 2 - Poodle Running- I can't figure out if that i snow around her face from the blowing wind or motion blur, or a combination. Yes, she is covered in snowballs. When she plays in the snow she gets covered in snowballs. Photo is cropped
Focal Length 71mm
1/640...f4.8...ISO-80
3rd photo - Snowball fun - I see the motion stopped in many place, my daughters foot, the snowball and finally my adorable puppy mid jump. Photo is cropped.
Focal Length 5mm
1/640...f4.9...ISO-80
Overall I think I did pretty well with this challenge.
I was able to fully stop the motion. I like the windmill showing the blurry movement. Something I learned was that I had to use manual focus and focused on the inside of the wheel (pre-focus) to get the blades sharp.
First the stop motion @ 1/2000
The one to compare with @ 1/250
It takes a while to get a feel for how your camera processes all of the information.
This was taken with a shutter speed of 1/2000; f3.2 and ISO 100.
Shutter speed 1/1250; f2.8, ISO 500.
This was a very quick, opportunistic shot. Just shot with the shutter speed that was already set, ie 1/1250. ISO at 500 is probably too grainy and if I had had more time I would have lowered the shutter speed.
Camera was hand held and set to shutter priority.
Shutter speed 1/1600
Aperture 4.0
ISO (on auto) 320
I'm guessing this is because, unlike the truck, not all of the subject is moving at exactly the same speed. My focus is definitely worse on her legs.
Shutter speed 1/250
Aperture 4.5
ISO (On Auto) 110
s/speed 1/800 av 6.3, iso 1000, fl 87mm.
quite a dull day, pleased to get some feel of bird although landing frozen.
S/speed 1250, av 6.3, iso 320, fl135.
Tried loads of different speeds for this. Faster was better, decided this one showed frozen effect the best.
S/speed 1/600, av 4.5, iso 400, fl 35mm.
Birds were difficult to decided on best speed. Liked the whole scene of this one.
s/speed 1/600 Av 6.3, iso 1250, fl 92mm
Tried for a closer shot, slightly cropped at edges. Wasnt sure if it was totally in focus, although birds mostly looked frozen.
Noticed in all these shots the aperture and iso changed unlike the slower speed where the aperture did the work. Its been lots of fun!
Tried this at several speeds but slower than this there was some blurring and faster than this appeared over sharp. Light stayed good throughout
I know I am late with this one but not sure how to get rid of the blue on hands and feet. Seems like I stopped the rest of the action. Thanks for the help.
f/4.0, 1/750 sec, 70 mm
For this shot I used a shutter speed of 1/250 since the chickens weren't running too fast. The camera set the aperture at 6 and the ISO at 100. Taken outside in the afternoon sun I expected the ISO to be at 100.
Later, the same afternoon as taking the chicken shot, I used different shutter speeds to stop the motion of the water and to see the results of the different settings. At 1/3200 the camera set the aperture at 5 and the ISO at 6400. It is quite dark. At 1/1600 the camera set the aperture at 5 and the ISO at 5000. This one is a bit lighter than the first. At 1/500 the camera set the aperture at 5 and the ISO at 1600. This lightened up the photo even though it was late in the afternoon and beginning to get dark.
Shutter speed 1/2500; f2.8; ISO 250
Captured this seagull as he came in to land on the rocks.
@cdean1956 Love this idea. What would be really fantastic is if you could capture it on a bit more of an angle so that we really know it is moving (you know, so it couldn't be confused with a still shot of the chime still or moving only very little). You would require a much faster shutter for that I suspect than 1/80 (and a higher ISO to enable it). A couple of extra tips, if you were to try this one again, is to 1) see if you can find a continuous-shooting (rapid-fire) setting so that you can focus once, and then fire off a bunch of shots as the chime is moving, and 2) ... don't wait for the wind ... just give it a swing ;)
@kalm Nice series :) I had a random thought at some point that kicking snowballs would be a great subject for this challenge! (as I sit here in stifling heat!) I have a tip not-so-much technique-related, but for me I find it a bit hard to see the details of each shot in a collage. You may already know this but it is possible to post new photos to old dates (just manually enter the date when you upload) - we don't care how many photos you enter, the more the merrier if you want! Up to you :)
However, I can see that you have your ISO cranked right up in this shot, which means (assuming you were to try to re-shoot this in the same spot and with the same amount of light) that it's not necessarily as simple as just making the shutter speed faster. Your aperture is at 6.3 and can I guess you are using an 18-55mm lens? (We will get into greater depth as we go with the triangle of SS, aperture and ISO, but you may already know that if you increase one (to maintain the same exposure) you then need to decrease another, if that makes sense.) So your ISO is already maxed out? And you could probably open your aperture slightly to 4.5 maybe? But that will only let you increase your shutter to 1/100 which is probably still not quick enough.
Anyway I am writing a lot of words here but my point is, what you REALLY need is more light!! That is what will enable you to get that faster shutter speed. Can you get outside (in the snow)?? Or a covered porch or even just a larger window and a slightly different angle? I realise today is technically the last day for this challenge but I would love to see the results if you have another go :)
Shutter speed: 1/100 f/5.0 ISO 100
I think a speed of 1/250 would have solved the problem of the slight loss of focus on the grey horse's muzzle.
Arrrrrgggghhhh!
Your water shots turned out well. A little dark, like you said. If you shoot RAW a lot of that detail is still available. You should do this shot again for next weeks challenge, slow shutter speeds.
If we wished to blur the movement of blades of a propeller we must down the speed to 1/125s or 1/250s. But then we must choose the vantage point and track the airplane / helicopter with care not to blurring him.
For this shot:
Speed: 1/1000s
Apperture: f:8
ISO: 200
Exposure: 0.0031 sec (1/320)
Aperture: f/2.8
ISO Speed: 1600
Focal Length: 60 mm
Perhaps it's my choice of lens that compromises the quality? 17mm 1:2.8 Shutter speed 1/1250 F/4.5 ISO 200 Camera is E-M10
It didn't stop the motion of the flags, but at 1/80s I really like the way the snow streaked across the photo. Hard to see in the collage, but if you view the large image you can. The flags were pretty well stopped at 1/200s, but my daughter was less than enthused about waving flags during a snow storm. :)
It is still Sunday Feb 1 here so here is my post. I had a good time playing with shutter speeds for both birds and ocean splashes but ultimately decided to post this one. I shot this at 1/640 sec at 300mm ISO 100 f/7.1 I was able to freeze the bird entirely and I am pretty happy with the shot. It is interesting that the 1/800 shots also froze the bird but they were not as clearly focused as the 1/640 shots. Maybe they had a tail wind and were going faster, I am just not sure.
This shot is at 1/1600, f/5.6 and ISO 125. 300mm lens on a Sony A230. No enhancements, only cropping. The shots at 1/2000 were a bit sharper but the color seemed off. At that speed the f-stop could not compensate. For these waves and this challenge, it seems 1/1600 was the correct speed.
I hope I tagged it right. Here is my attempt to fast shutter speed. Would be nice to hear some comments too. Thanks :)
@camerasavvy
@camerasavvy