Why are shutter speeds so important? If you shoot a moving subject at a slow shutter speed, the picture will most likely be blurred. On the other hand, you can't just shoot everything at a fast shutter speed because faster speeds allow less time to expose the film. If the shutter speed selected is too fast for your shooting conditions, not enough light reaches the film so the pictures will be underexposed. For any shooting situation, you have to balance the three elements: shutter speed - how long the light strikes the film, aperture value - how much light passes through the lens and film sensitivity - how much light the film needs in order to become properly exposed. Understanding how to handle these three elements are part of the fundamentals of photography to help you create better pictures. For instance, if you want to shoot pictures wide open at the lens' maximum aperture setting so you can throw the background out of focus and isolated the main subject(s) against unwanted elements, using high shutter speeds will enable you to do so. Photographers tend to think in terms of shutter speeds that can be hand-held. A general rule is that when using a 50mm lens, most people can hand hold shutter speeds of 1/50 sec. or faster. Photo enthusiasts will notice that in any photographic books and magazines, this general ruling is observed as well. It is because this rule is universal and is part of the fundamentals of choosing and using shutter speeds. You'll also notice the kind of lens mentioned above -- that's because longer lenses (telephoto lenses) tend to exaggerate the problem the problem due to camera shake. This is why you see that most telephoto lenses of 200mm focal length and above come standard with either detachable or built-in tripod collars where professional photographers usually mounted such lenses on a sturdy tripod or monopod. << Back to Main . 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . 7 . 8 . 9 . 10 . 11 . 12 .