SLOW AND STEADY

Mike Harris shows you how to use a slow shutter speed to add a sense of motion to landscapes and seascapes

- Mike Harris

1 HOUR Shutter speed controls how long a camera’s shutter is open for, and therefore the length of time for which the sensor is exposed to light. However, just as with aperture and ISO, there’s more to shutter speed than basic exposure control.

The faster the shutter speed, the more likely it is that movement will be frozen, and the slower the shutter speed the more likely you’ll capture motion blur. Both effects can be used to enhance your images, and in this Crash Course we’re going to look at how slower shutter speeds can be used to add a sense of motion to your landscape photos.

It might initially seem like movement is a rather redundant element when shooting landscapes, but when you consider running water, moving clouds and windswept vegetation, there’s ample opportunity to inject a sense of motion into outdoor scenes. You can use slow shutter speeds to blur these moving elements to form streaky clouds and milky bodies of water, although it’s not always as simple as dialling in the desired settings.