Tip #1 Shutter Speed

Shutter Speed & Motion Blur

    I get asked a lot when I am shooting a sport how I am able to capture the action shots without the image being blurry. Here are a few tips to keep in mind.

    When you take a photo with your digital camera, light is briefly captured on your camera's sensor. The length of time the light is captured is known as the shutter speed. Many DSLR's have shutter speeds that range from 30 seconds (extremely slow) to 1/4000th of a second or faster.

   Shutter speed affects the exposure of your photo by the amount of time light is captured. Setting your camera to a faster shutter speed may create underexposed images because your camera will have less time to capture light. Shutter speed can also affect how blurry your image will be. The slower the shutter speed, the more motion blur you will get from moving people or objects.

Blur can also be caused by even the slightest movement of your hands while holding the camera. This is known as "camera shake". To reduce or eliminate camera shake you can do several things.

1. Set the shutter speed to a faster setting.
2. Turn on the image stabilization on certain camera lenses.
3. Stabilize your camera by using a tripod.

As a general rule, if you're shooting at a shutter speed slower then 1/60 of a second, you're bound to see blur in the image. To play it safe, try shooting no slower than 1/125 of a second.