How to create motion blur in daylight?

Question

How can we create motion blur in daylight with a DSLR?

Asked by meetpd

Answer

The short answer is: use a long shutter speed. To control this, put your camera into Shutter Priority mode (indicated by a "S" on the dial" and adjust the speed to a relatively long time - perhaps a half a second, a whole second, or perhaps longer.

The longer answer for when it gets tricky: You might find that during the daytime, things are so bright that when you set a long shutter speed, even at the camera's smaller aperture (biggest f/ number) you end up with blown-out highlights or overexposure. In these cases, make sure that you're using the lowest ISO possible. If that's not good enough, you might need to look at a neutral density filter, which is a filter that limits the amount of light coming into the camera. These are often used for longer daytime exposures such as those seen with silky waterfall photos.

Another tip that applies to long exposures at any time is that you'll want to stabilize the camera using a tripod or other device to prevent camera shake.

Answered by ahockley

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What is the shutter speed needed to stop motion?

Question

I find that taking pictures where the subject is in motion (people, pets, toy helicopters) I get a blur where there is movement.

On the other hand I see images of a drop of water in free fall in perfect clarity.

How fast does the shutter need to be to capture action in motion with perfect crisp clarity?

For example I want to catch a dog shaking himself dry after a swim and not get a bury mess but to see the hairs flying and water frozen in the air as it flies off the dogs fur and makes a giant mist around the dog.

Answer

While you can get some freezing with speeds around 1/300 (see the first photo below), I would recommend going with faster shutter speeds if you want to take shots of water drops falling or moving away from wet dogs.

One thing to keep in mind is that most flashes have a limit on their sync speed, which means that the use of flash will limit your fastest shutter time available.

• Example 1: 1/320 speed, no flash:

(as you see there's still blur on the water and a flash, even if able to reach the dog, wouldn't make much a difference if it wasn't able to go faster than 1/320)

• Example 2: 1/1300 s, using the internal flash of a Panasonic FZ18 and the ambient kitchen light:

Here a smaller aperture and the ambient light allowed for a slight slower speed, but the shot is sharp enough for me.

• Example 3: 1/1600 s, using the internal flash of a Panasonic FZ18, no ambient light (shot in the dark):

Here the speed was enough to freeze the drop and the flash was set stronger enough to provide the needed reflections on the background (since there was no ambient light).

Finally, if you are into capturing water drops don't miss John Cavan's very good post on the subject - Catching the Elusive Water Drop

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