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What’s the slowest shutter-speed you can shoot hand held?

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Back in 2018, I wrote an article that said that ‘Tripods are not just for landscape photographers, they can be useful tools for all photographers.‘ and I still stand by that.

The other week I was invited over to the UK to help Sigma with a photography event. I was doing a short talk and demo about portrait photography. The question about kit came up and I was asked: “what is the most important bit of kit you carry?” During my answer, I mentioned tripods. This caught a few people off guard. I went on to explain why. I can not remember word for word what I said in London as it was a busy day with lots going on, but this paraphrased quote from the article sums up my thoughts well.

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Why shutter angle is way better than shutter speed when shooting video

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Although “shutter angle” is mostly a digital concept these days rather than a physical thing, it’s the term that determines how the camera calculates your shutter speed when shooting video. It’s a foreign concept to many photographers, though, especially if they haven’t used cameras which utilise it. This video from DPReview explains why it’s the best way to control your shutter when shooting video.

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Here’s a Sony video hack no one told you about

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The rule of thumb when shooting video is to use a shutter speed that’s double your frame rate. But there’s a simple “hack” that opens up so many creative possibilities. In this video from Advancing Your Photography, filmmaker Fletcher Murray shares a shutter speed trick you can pull off with Sony mirrorless cameras. It will let you get creative and add a new dimension to your videos.

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A comprehensive visual guide to equivalent exposure

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If you’re just starting out with photography, the relationship between ISO, aperture and shutter speed is one of the crucial things to learn. However, it can be difficult to grasp if the concept is new to you. In this great animated video from Apalapse you’ll easily learn the relationship between the three parameters and how they affect the exposure and the look of your images.

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How to set a great exposure when shooting video

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Getting exposure for video isn’t all that much different from getting a good exposure with photography. The only real difference is that neutral density filters are more commonly used with video than they are with stills, so they need to be taken into account more regularly. So, the exposure triangle becomes a square. Well, a trapezoid, really. Shutter speed, aperture, gain (rather than ISO), and neutral density.

In this video, Chris and Jordan from DPReview delve into the topic of video exposure. They discuss the things you need to know to understand the exposure relationship, the difference between T stops and F stops, the 180° shutter rule, and everything else that goes into getting a good exposure for your shot.

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5 creative uses of shutter speed in your videos

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When shooting a video, a general rule is to set the shutter speed to be the double of the frame rate. However, there are scenarios in which breaking this rule is welcome. In this video, Jordy Vandeput of Cinecom shows you five creative effects you can pull off just by changing the shutter speed while filming.

For example, if your frame rate is 25 fps, the shutter speed should generally be 1/50, which will give you the most natural motion blur. But here are the situations when you don’t want a normal shutter speed, but you want to achieve some creative effects.

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Making sense of aperture, shutter speed and ISO with the exposure triangle

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How important is exposure in photography? What are the components of exposure? What is the “Exposure Triangle”? These are the questions I will attempt to answer in this introductory post about ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speed – the components of achieving a properly exposed photo.

Understanding the purpose and value of exposure is a must for photographers, particularly beginners who are serious about developing their craft.

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Shutter Speed Chart as a Photographer’s Cheat Sheet

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When we talk about the Shutter Speed in photography the first thing that comes to mind is its is relationship to Exposure. The Shutter speed is the essential part of Exposure Triangle (Aperture, ISO, Shutter Speed) and it helps photographers to get perfectly exposed photos.

But my belief is that to understand and to master Shutter Speed for taking the perfectly exposed images is the easiest part of the equation. The more exciting but at the same time more challenging part is to learn how to use Shutter Speed as the artistic tool in our photography. By using different settings of Shutter Speed we can achieve some amazing effects.

The goal of Shutter Speed Chart is to summarize and illustrate the different aspects of Shutter Speed to help photographers to master Shutter Speed to get well-exposed photos and to embrace it as an artistic tool.

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Watch a helicopter magically levitates with frozen rotors, and understand why it happens

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Have you ever seen a helicopter magically rise in the air without its motor spinning? If not, you are in for a treat. OK, how can that be?

Here is a little well-known secret, the main rotor of the helicopter is actually spinning pretty fast? Fast enough that it perfectly aligns with the frame rate of the camera.

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Everything you ever needed to know about shutter speed

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There’s a lot more to shutter speed than simply filling in a part of the exposure triangle.  The creative choices when it comes to shutter speed are just as important as the technical.

In this video from PhotoRec TV, Toby Gelston tells us all about shutter speed, the issues that can arise from having one that’s too fast or too slow, how to fix them.  He also talks about how we can use shutter speed creatively to give you the images you really want.

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