Shutter Speed

Shutter Speed

"Shutter speed is the length of time the camera shutter is open, exposing light onto the image" Nasim Mansurov, and it exists because of the camera shutter opening when the camera is fired, exposing the light sensor in the camera to light that passes through the camera lens. Shutter speed effects exposure, but also effects how much motion blur is created in the footage. As a rule of thumb, the slower the shutter speed, the more motion blur is created in the final image; the shutter speed used should be approximately double the frame rate you're shooting in, the standard settings used are 24 frames per second and a shutter speed of 1/50.

To demonstrate this and gain a greater understanding of how shutter speed affects the quality of the footage, I filmed moving compositions for between ten and twenty seconds in three different shutter speeds, 1/30, 1/50 and 1/25, so that I could later analyse the difference in the final footage captured in each of these settings.




Slow Shutter Speed- 1/30
This shutter speed created the most motion blur of the three that I used in my test. I found that my composition appeared almost to lag and create a slow-motion kind of effect on the movements that they made.  If i was to use this technique in filming, i would probably be semiotically, for example to emulate the feeling of being drunk or dazed.

Standard Shutter Speed-1/50
This footage was the smoothest and most natural-looking shutter speed that I tested, and retained the compositions natural fluidity in movement rather than creating jolty, torn or overly lagged footage.

These still images, taken from a clip that I filmed at a skate park demonstrates this well; I found that the motion of the bike was best captured using shutter speed 1/50 because it gave the final image a feeling of fluidity due to creating a motion blur rather than creating a jolty and unnatural looking piece of film. I would be most likely to use this setting for standard shooting because I found that the quality of the footage overall was vastly better for general use than using a higher or lower shutter speed.

Fast Shutter Speed- 1/250
This shutter speed created more jolty and torn footage; movement in this camera setting appeared to be jolty and torn. Even the camera shake from hand-held shooting is evident and jolty in this setting. This footage is better than standard shutter speed if you're intending to slow it down during editing as it is still over double the frames per second used in the rest of your footage so I'd be more likely to use this technique if I were to slow anything down or if I was making an action, thriller or horror film.

This still image is taken from footage shot at a derelict metal works on Abberley Road, Smethwick; the image is much clearer and demonstrates almost no motion blur. I found that this made the footage jolty and created an almost unnerving and uneasy atmosphere upon watching it back. I feel that this particular shutter speed would not be appropriate for conventional filming, however, if you were for instance filming for a horror film, then this shutter speed could be used to create a certain atmosphere for the audience.