Shutter Speed

Shutter Speed is the amount of time the camera's shutter is open when taking a photograph. By changing the shutter speed this allows the photographer to either freeze or slow down the action of a particular subject.Shutter speed is defined by fractions of a second.

1/4000  1/2000  1/800  1/200  1/50  1/20

1s  2s  5s  10s  20s  30s 

In most cases you’ll probably be using shutter speeds of 1/60th of a second or faster. This is because anything slower than this is very difficult to use without getting camera shake. Camera shake is when your camera is moving while the shutter is open and results in blur in your photos. If you’re using a slow shutter speed (anything slower than 1/60) you will need to either use a tripod or some some type of image stabilization (more and more cameras are coming with this built in). When considering what shutter speed to use in an image you should always ask yourself whether anything in your scene is moving and how you’d like to capture that movement. If there is movement in your scene you have the choice of either freezing the movement (so it looks still) or letting the moving object intentionally blur (giving it a sense of movement). To freeze movement in an image (like in the surfing shot above) you’ll want to choose a faster shutter speed and to let the movement blur you’ll want to choose a slower shutter speed. The actual speeds you should choose will vary depending upon the speed of the subject in your shot and how much you want it to be blurred. Focal Length and Shutter Speed - another thing to consider when choosing shutter speed is the focal length of the lens you’re using. Longer focal lengths will accentuate the amount of camera shake you have and so you’ll need to choose a faster shutter speed (unless you have image stabilization in your lens or camera). The ‘rule’ of thumb to use with focal length in non image stabilized situations) is to choose a shutter speed with a denominator that is larger than the focal length of the lens. For example if you have a lens that is 50mm 1/60th is probably ok but if you have a 200mm lens you’ll probably want to shoot at around 1/250.

 

Sources - http://digital-photography-school.com/shutter-speed

The images above were taken on a high shutter speed, because of the dogs movement i chose to shoot it on a high shutter speed to capture as much movement as possible, because as it is an animal it would be hard to talk to the animal as if it is a model.