shutter speed

In photography, shutter speed is a common term used to discuss exposure time, the effective length of time a camera's shutter is open 

So this is my very first time using my camera in manual mode! I actually took it off automatic and played around with varying shutter speeds. Now, abeit, a lot of my pictures ended up being out of focus, but that was the whole idea to learning something new, right?

In digital photography shutter speed is the length of time that your image sensor ‘sees’ the scene you’re attempting to capture. Shutter speed is measured in seconds – or in most cases fractions of seconds. The bigger the denominator the faster the speed (ie 1/1000 is much faster than 1/30).

American kestral 1/200 sec.

Screech Owl - red phase 1/125 sec.

 

Red Tail Hawk 1/60 sec.

( You can see here where I used a too low a shutter speed, hence the white background, but I love the light showing through his wings though, :) )

 Bald Eagle 1/200

Harris's Hawk 1/160 sec

 Barred Owl 1/200 sec. 

group picture with Michael the instructor 1/320 sec.

So what I learned today is that in bright afternoon light my shutter speed needs to be higher! A lesson learned today :)

Our photo shoot was taken at Balsam Nature Center, Slyva, NC, right off the Great Smoky Mountain Expressway on an isolated two-lane mountain road.