Academy · Camera fundamentals
Shutter speed: freezing and showing motion
How long the sensor collects light decides whether a moving subject is crisp or a streak, and how bright the frame is.
Introduction · 1 of 7
The van that wouldn't hold still
A client paid for a sharp photo of their delivery van. The pilot nailed the framing, and the logo came out as a smear. Nothing was wrong with the drone. One number was wrong.
Shutter speed is how long the sensor collects light for one photo, from 1/8000 s to several seconds.
It does two jobs at once: it controls how much light you gather (brightness) and how far anything moving travels while you gather it (motion blur).
By the end of this lesson you'll choose a shutter speed on purpose, predict the blur before you press the button, and rebalance the exposure with aperture and ISO.