Shutter Speed Demystified (2019) - Lesson 3 of 10

Photography uses all kinds of fractions to indicate shutter speed like 1/20, 1/60, 1/100, 1/500, 1/1000...but what do these numbers mean? In photography, shutter speed is indicated in fractions of a second. In other words, these fractions indicate the length of time for the shutter to open and close to expose the camera's sensor to light. For beginners, these numbers are confusing. So let's use an analogy to explain them. For now, ignore the top number of the fractions. Let's think of shutter speed like the speed of a car. If we had one car going 60 mph and another going 1000 mph, which is faster? Obviously, the car going 1000 mph. So a shutter speed of 1/1000 is much faster than a shutter speed of 1/60. These fractions are important to know because fast shutter speeds allow less time for light to enter the camera sensor and create the exposure. Because of this, fast shutter speeds allow the photographer to freeze motion. On the other hand, a slow shutter speed exposes the image sensor to light for a longer period of time and allows for motion blur in an image. To discover suggested shutter speeds, helpful cheat sheets and more on how to use shutter speed creatively, visit https://davidmolnar.com/shutter-speed.