Shutter speed is the amount of time your camera’s shutter will remain open when exposing your film or your digital sensors. It is usually represented by a whole number, but for the most part refers to a fraction of a second. 500 means 1/500 of a second, 60 means 1/60 of a second, and so forth.

Generally, you will be using fast shutter speeds in brightly-lit situations and longer shutter speeds in dark environments. But to understand shutter speed, you will need to keep in mind what aperture you are shooting with. Fortunate for you, all cameras that have a built-in light meter will do this for you.

In manual mode, or on cameras that are nothing but manual (like an old Pentax), your light meter will let you know if you are underexposing or overexposing your image when you are looking through the viewfinder. This is done in newer cameras with green lights along the bottom of the image frame, and in older cameras, it’s often a needle that rises and falls as you make adjustments. Regardless of the representation, your basic exposure should be taken when the light meter indicates that everything falls dead center (most common), or when the light meter tells you that your shutter speed is reasonable. (This gets a little more complex when you have multiple lighting schemes present, which I will write about in another page about exposing for highlights and shadows.)

Without a tripod
What I mean by a reasonable shutter speed is one that can be reasonably sustained without a tripod. A shutter speed that is too long without a tripod will cause blurring and movement effects in the photo. This can fun to play with, but can be disappointing when you’re trying to get a clear image. The general rule for a minimum shutter speed without a tripod can be determined by the focal length of their lens. If you are using a 35mm lens, you probably shouldn’t have a shutter speed faster than 30 (1/30), a 50mm – 1/60 of a second, 135mm – 1/25 of a second, and so on. See how all the numbers are around the same? Your lens focal length and your minimum shutter speed will be close to one another.

Without a light meter
If you are using a camera without a light meter or with a broken light meter, there are two things that you can do.

1. You can use a hand-held light meter.

2. You can sometimes use the “Sunny 16 Rule.”

Maximum shutter speeds
Each camera has a different way of adjusting shutter speeds. Older manual cameras have a wheel of shutter speeds that go down to 1 second. You’ll notice that they have a “B” or “T” setting just below the lowest shutter speed setting. This means “bulb” or “time.” It’s a setting that allows the photographer to determine how long the exposure will be. Imagine you want to take a photo of the stars at night. You might want to open your shutter for 1 minute, or more. By setting it to “B,” you can trigger the shutter open in the normal fashion, and then you will have to trigger it again to close it. Since any movement of the camera might cause unwanted effects in your image, with long exposures, you might want to try using a shutter release cable. These are a good to use with longer exposures, low-light situations, or for self-portraits. For digital cameras, you can get electronic remote control cable releases.

Modern film cameras will have limitations on the set lengths of shutter speed dependent on the type of film in the camera – 100 speed film will allow for longer exposures than 400. But they will also have a bulb or time setting.