Wind Speed, Shutter Speed, And Foliage

[decado]

Is there some kind of general rule of what shutter speed to use in order to freeze motion when shooting foliage in a breeze/wind? I'm never really sure what speed I need to freeze motion even in a slight breeze.

 

[KmH]

The higher the wind speed, the faster the shutter speed needs to be to stop motion.

To be sure all motion gets stopped, you use overkill. If you think 1/250 will stop the motion, use another stop of shutter speed, 1/500.

The thing is, not all the branches/leaves/foliage will be moving the same speed; thick branches will move slower than thin branches.

Plus, it depends what direction the motion is relative to the plane of the image sensor.

Motion perpendicular to the image sensor plane is easier to stop than motion parallel to the image sensor plane.

 

[Big]

Haha!! This was my problem today! I was using my macro lens on a leaf and every time I got it in focus, a slight breeze would blow it out of focus... (was such a pain!)

 

[burstintoflame81]

They make little tent things for small bushes and flowers that you can collapse and carry with you. They are white for taming light but also block wind. Its much more complicated of a setup for a quick spontaneous photo op. ( I know that your main question was about shutter speeds but I just figured I would throw it out there and maybe other people more familiar with those products can elaborate.

 

[Big]

^^^^^
Sounds like a pain in the a$$...

 

[decado]

So I was thinking of going out for a bit today and getting pictures, but there's 15mph wind with higher gusts, is it completely pointless?

 

[Big]

It's never pointless to go play with your camera... learning how to deal with the 15 mph winds will only make you a better photographer...

 

[decado]

It's never pointless to go play with your camera... learning how to deal with the 15 mph winds will only make you a better photographer...

I was just wondering if anyone really bothers when wind is that hard (probably 25mph gusts on top of that 15). Is it even worth learning to shoot in that much wind?

 

[KmH]

The wind doesn't much effect the soccer players I shoot. It doesn't have much of a negative effect when I shoot custom cars either.

I does screw things up when I want to make macro images of bugs ob foliage.