Shutter speed

swat9uk · Apr 1, 2015

is there anyway to max out the shutter speed on manual without it either making the picture tiny or dark, still keeping iso about 100 or 200
adjust the speed to about 1/250 full picture no problems put it on 1/4000 might be able see a small spec the rest is to dark with auto white balance

just though as this shutter speed would come in very handy sometimes

any hints what I could try to obtain 1/4000 speed or is it to good to be true ,

Forkie · Apr 1, 2015

You need to read up on the exposure triangle: Camera Exposure Aperture ISO Shutter Speed

In order to use a 1/4000 shutter speed, you must have more light; either by adjusting your ISO, aperture or by simply adding more light to your scene.

astroNikon · Apr 1, 2015

Shutter speed should be dependent upon what you are doing.
Taking a picture of a flying military jet? A commercial jet? or a single engine cessna airplane? You need a faster shutter speed to stop action the faster the subject is.

The Exposure Triangle is based on 3 items: Shutter, Aperture and ISO.

If you do not change Aperture at all
Then when you increase the speed of the Shutter, which decreases light coming in then you HAVE to increase the ISO to compensate.

Don't be stuck on having ISO at 100. Today's cameras are very adept at higher ISOs.

An alternative is to add light.

I use Shutter 2000, 2500, 4000 and 8000 at times. But the sensor still has to gather enough light for you to get a proper exposure.

If we knew more of what you are doing and trying to accomplish it might help on a better solution.

swat9uk · Apr 1, 2015

solved thank you I just took it outside iso 400 shutter speed max out perfect take-off snap of a pigeon sharp thank you

swat9uk · Apr 1, 2015

on mine it only goes up to 4000 I will compensate the iso like you say and play around with it,
this sounds a silly question but when standard flash built in is in use it will restrict shutter speed I think to 250, flash of upto 4000 how does this work if you was to pop on a flashgun? would it restrict it back to 250 im not sure if it will go beyond 4000 I doubt it for the canon d100

Overread · Apr 1, 2015

Before you take a shot a curtain blocks light to the sensor
When you take the shot this first curtain moves out of the way and exposes the sensor to light.
When the time for the shot (shutter speed) ends the second curtain folds down and blocks light reaching the sensor.

When you shoot at speeds faster than 1/250sec or 1/200sec (it varies a little camera to camera) what happens is that the second curtain starts moving before the first one has fully finished opening. This exposes only a slither of the sensor to light at any one time (at very fast speeds this can be a very tiny gap).

Now flash light is a single pulse of light, so at speeds where the whole sensor is exposed its fine as all the sensor sees that light. At faster speeds you will see a black bar of underexposure on the shot because the flash is going out in a single pulse which will only expose part of the sensor because one part of the shutter curtains is blocking the rest.

Now some speedlites have what is called "highspeed sync" (some other terms are used too) which means that instead of a single burst of light it comes out in a series of pulses. This allows it to be used in this mode at faster shutter speeds. Downside is that it reduces the maximum power output of the flash. In addition its not ideal for fast action because you get the light in pulses and thus fast motion will reveal a level of blur during this mode.