PC_Advisor_Issue_264_July_2017

FEATURE
When using aperture priority keep an eye
on the shutter speed, because should it get
below 1/30 second, it will become difficult to
shoot handheld and avoid blurry photos.
2. Sporting shots
Unless you’re photographing Crown
Green Bowls, the speed of those taking
part becomes a critical factor in how you
approach getting decent sports photographs.
Here’s a photo shot
with a high aperture
Ideally, you usually want to freeze the
subject in action, requiring a high shutter
speed in preference to aperture control.
Using shutter priority mode is the
obvious choice, usually the ‘S’ setting on the
mode dial. The beauty of shutter priority
is that you can set 1/500 of a second, and
know that you’ll get precisely that.
However, a high shutter speed doesn’t
suit all sports. Photographing racing cars,
for example, is best done at a slower shutter,
tracking the car to create motion blur
around it, while leaving the vehicle sharp.
Conversely, any sport with water is
often best shot at the very highest possible
speed, capturing all the liquid surface details.
What you can’t ignore is what the
camera does with the aperture. With a
high f/22 setting the background will
be as detailed as the foreground competitor/
vehicle, unhelpfully.
Those wanting to shoot sports on a
regular basis will need a big 400mm (or
longer) lens, a supporting monopod, and
be happy to sift through many hundreds of
images that never quite caught the moment.
3. Long exposures
Using long exposure times, you can
capture the movement of stars, cars on
the road at night and the airliners on their
final approach. The trick is balancing the
light entering the lens with the length
of exposure. The timing requires a bit of
guesswork because the light metering
in most DSLRs just doesn’t work well for
multi‐second or minute long exposures.
The mode you need to use is called
‘Bulb’, and it allows you to hold the
shutter open for as long as is necessary.
Depending what you’re trying to capture,
that might be a few seconds or hours.
Capturing the moment
July 2017 www.pcadvisor.co.uk/features 81