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Creative Use of Shutter Speed and Aperture

One of the key technical components in photography is the Exposure Triangle. While the Exposure Triangle helps us understand the technical side of shutter, aperture and ISO, we want to look at shutter and aperture from the art perspective of things. What do they mean for the creative artist in you? How can you use them to give some visual appeal to your images? We have some tips and ideas to help you with that.

Photography

Freezing Motion
The shutter is primarily responsible of allowing light onto the camera sensor for a finite amount of time. But in the hands of a photographer who likes to test his or her creativity, it functions as a tool to depict and freeze motion. You can use super-high shutter speeds on your Nikon Z fc from Beachcamera.com to freeze motion in the frame.

Slow Shutter Speed
There’s no doubt that it makes for a pleasing frame and you often need a fast shutter speed to capture the moment. But there are times when motion is depicted even better with a slow shutter speed. It gives a different feel to the image. The next time you see a subject walking or running, try a slow shutter speed and see what you get. The key is to move the camera at the same speed as the subject. Set up the camera in Tv/S mode and dial a slow shutter speed. Wait for the subject and start focus tracking before you want to click it. Once you have locked focus on the subject, keep moving your camera to keep the subject on the selected focus point. Click when the subject is at about a 90-degree angle to you or just before. That’s when you get the best results. Start somewhere around 1/50th of a shutter speed and work your way around to a shutter speed that works best for the situation.

Waterfalls
If you’re into landscape photography, slow shutter speeds are a norm as most images occur when the light is at its softest. And where in landscape photography do we depict motion most often? When photographing water with Nikon Z5 Mirrorless Camera from Beachcamera.com. To get shots of milky, smooth waterfalls or rivers, click them at really slow shutter speeds

nikon
 

Aperture
Aperture is used to control the amount of light coming into the camera at any given time. It’s the component that lets you control the blurring of foreground and background. It can help you isolate the subject and keep everything in focus.

Get Creative with Portraits
Use a wide aperture to throw the background out of focus when taking portraits. This is called selective focus. The idea is to focus on the subject’s eyes. Select a wide aperture so that the eyes and part of the face are in focus and the rest goes out of focus. Get in as close to your subject as you can, and move them as far away from the background as possible. This will help you keep depth-of-field as shallow as possible with your lens.

Seeing Stars
Another popular creative use of aperture is to use a high f-stop, narrow aperture, such as f16 or f22. This will turn small light sources into a “Star Burst” effect. So next time you’re out in the field think about how you can creatively use shutter speed and aperture to create stunning photos.
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