3 WAYS TO CAPTURE MOTION
3 WAYS TO CAPTURE MOTION
Stop-action involves freezing movement, or suspending a subject in motion. This effect requires a fast shutter speed, which allows less light to hit the sensor. If a photographer wants to freeze motion, other settings may need to compensate for the loss of light to properly expose the image. To freeze interaction, talking, and movement, a shutter speed of 1/200s is a good place to start.
A fast shutter speed may be accompanied by a large aperture (small f-stop number) or high ISO to properly expose the photograph, depending on how much light is present in the scene.
Fast shutter speeds are often used in sports and wildlife photography to capture a moving subject with little or no motion blur.
Motion blur is created when a slower shutter speed is used to capture
a subject in motion. A tripod may be required to prevent the camera from moving while the shutter is open. Anything stationary in the scene will remain sharp as long as the camera does not move, but anything in motion will be blurred. In the image below, the moving water is blurred while the rest of the scene is sharp.
Panned motion is captured when the subject in motion is sharp, but the background is blurred. This effect can be created by turning, or panning, the camera to follow a moving subject.
This technique is commonly used in car advertisements and racing, creating an impression of speed or passage of time.
To learn more about capturing motion and balancing exposure with Shutter Speed, Aperture, and ISO, check out Camera Basics in the Fundamentals section.
