Need help with low Shutter Speed

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Andrea Lynn

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Andrea
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First I want to admit that I am totally new at this photography thing so please have mercy on me:) I have spent the last 3 months reading and researching how to improve my pictures and now I am trying to put what I have learned into action. With that being said, I have 1 big problem/question: While in M mode I cannot seem to get my shutter speed very high. I'll adjust the aperture and even the ISO and the shutter speed is always very low. What in the world am I doing wrong? I understand the whole balance thing - aperture/shutter speed/ISO but I cannot ever achieve this even in AV mode. Thanks so much!!!
 
What camera are you using?

I use a D3100 and if I'm in manual mode I adjust the shutter by just simply sliding my toggle over, likewise if I want to change the apeture I slide the toggle over while holding a button on the top of my camera..?
 
Try the S setting if your camera??? has one

Realspeed
 
Andrea Lynn said:
First I want to admit that I am totally new at this photography thing so please have mercy on me:) I have spent the last 3 months reading and researching how to improve my pictures and now I am trying to put what I have learned into action. With that being said, I have 1 big problem/question: While in M mode I cannot seem to get my shutter speed very high. I'll adjust the aperture and even the ISO and the shutter speed is always very low. What in the world am I doing wrong? I understand the whole balance thing - aperture/shutter speed/ISO but I cannot ever achieve this even in AV mode. Thanks so much!!!
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I'm a beginner too but I am very curious about your question. When you say " very high" what is the maximum shutter speed? What is the setting, bright daylight, night, medium lighting? And are you increasing the iso as you increase the shutter speed? If so what is the highest iso you have tried.

I seem to be having the same problem with my apiture. I can't get enough light unless I have it wide open. This leaves me with little room to raise my shutter speed for stop action. I feel like I might have something besides the big three exposure setting wrong on my slr or maybe its just because I'm using a 18×55 canon starter lens and I'm expecting too much from it. I really don't know at this point.
 
If you're in manual then you normally need to press a button (i use AE-L/AF-L on my Nikon) together with rotating the dial to adjust the shutter speed..
 
The exposure settings you can achieve depend on the light level. If you're outdoors, you'll have no trouble getting four-figure shutter speeds, but if it's indoors under normal room light, you'll struggle to get that even with a massively high ISO or very low f/number lens.

There is no secret to it. The three corners of the exposure triangle are shutter speed, lens aperture and ISO. Once you've exhausted all the options there but still not got what you want, then the options are:

Make more light, eg flash (not always easy or appropriate).
Get a lens with a lower f/number, eg an f/1.4 prime (expensive).
Get a new camera with higher ISO capability (very expensive).
 
HoppyUK said:
The exposure settings you can achieve depend on the light level. If you're outdoors, you'll have no trouble getting four-figure shutter speeds, but if it's indoors under normal room light, you'll struggle to get that even with a massively high ISO or very low f/number lens.

There is no secret to it. The three corners of the exposure triangle are shutter speed, lens aperture and ISO. Once you've exhausted all the options there but still not got what you want, then the options are:

Make more light, eg flash (not always easy or appropriate).
Get a lens with a lower f/number, eg an f/1.4 prime (expensive).
Get a new camera with higher ISO capability (very expensive).
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That's just it, I have this problem wail I'm outside late in the afternoon. Yes the sun is going down but there seems to be plenty of light. I am generally left with no other option but slowing the shutter very low or raising the iso high.
What about the metering modes or white balance, could they contribute to the problem I'm having if their not set correctly?
 
What your eye sees as bright is very different to what the camera sees as bright.

Take now for example. Its 7.30pm, I can still see outside perfectly well, its not much different to an overcast day at 11 am.
But I bet if I was to take the camera out, I'd be down to 1/10th second or slower at ISO 200 and f/4

Metering will have an effect, as whatever mode you use tells the camera which bits are the most important to take readings from. White balance has no effect on this at all.
 
TCR4x4 said:
What your eye sees as bright is very different to what the camera sees as bright.

Take now for example. Its 7.30pm, I can still see outside perfectly well, its not much different to an overcast day at 11 am.
But I bet if I was to take the camera out, I'd be down to 1/10th second or slower at ISO 200 and f/4

Metering will have an effect, as whatever mode you use tells the camera which bits are the most important to take readings from. White balance has no effect on this at all.
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Yep, the camera is only working with what you put in front of it and if it's quite dark, eventually you run out of options. Changing metering, white balance or whatever will not change this in terms of results. i.e if you've got the aperture wide open, the iso cranked up as far as you dare and the shutter speed is still slow, then, without using a flash, that is all you have to work with. This is why people end up spending a fortune on very wide aperture primes or cameras with better high iso performance.

ETA, just read Hoppy's reply and realise my post is redundant! :)
 
TCR4x4 said:
What your eye sees as bright is very different to what the camera sees as bright.

Take now for example. Its 7.30pm, I can still see outside perfectly well, its not much different to an overcast day at 11 am.
But I bet if I was to take the camera out, I'd be down to 1/10th second or slower at ISO 200 and f/4

Metering will have an effect, as whatever mode you use tells the camera which bits are the most important to take readings from. White balance has no effect on this at all.
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Thanks for the info you have saved me a lot of time not to mention frustration when I ended up not being able to find an adjustment other than what I'm using now. I'm sorry for drilling you guys with question but it seems that every answer leads me to another question. With that said, does the metering work like apiture. Like if you meter more area does your slr see more light. I think this would be a good time to reiterate the fact that I am very new at this. (1 whole month)!
 
The metering just tells the camera what amount of the scene to take into consideration when it calculates the exposure. You will have two or three modes.
They will be center weighted, matrix and spot.

Center weighted gives priority to the center but takes into consideration the entire scene, matrix takes in the entire scene and spot is just a small spot.

There are times where you dont want the camera to see the whole scene, such as shooting a black object on a bright white background. You'd use spot metering to tell the camera you want it to expose so the black part is correctly exposed. If there was a super bright area in a shot, it could fool the camera into underexposing, so you could use spot metering to take a reading from an area that wasnt so bright, and sort of "blind" the camera from the bright part.

Unless you are comfortable enough to distinguish the differences,I'd leave it on matrix and let the camera do the work.
 
shaylou said:
Thanks for the info you have saved me a lot of time not to mention frustration when I ended up not being able to find an adjustment other than what I'm using now. I'm sorry for drilling you guys with question but it seems that every answer leads me to another question. With that said, does the metering work like apiture. Like if you meter more area does your slr see more light. I think this would be a good time to reiterate the fact that I am very new at this. (1 whole month)!
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Simple answer is no. Maybe what you're having trouble with it just how amazingly good our eyesight is.

A quick comparison. Bright sun (using the Sunny 16 rule) would be an exposure of 1/400sec at f/16, ISO400. In my living room right now, average domestic room light, I'm getting 1/15sec at f/2.8, ISO400. That's a difference of ten stops, or 1,024x less bright.

You can even see quite well by moonlight or candle light, when the camera exposure would be several seconds, or more. This is the main appeal of the latest cameras with massively high ISO capability. Most of the time, in good light, there's very little benefit, but crank them up and they allow you to shoot in situations that were previously impossible, or they will allow you to use longer lenses and higher shutter speeds than ever before, presenting new opportunities. If you're a sports porfessional for example, that transltes directly into more money earned.
 
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Thank you so much for taking the time to explain this. Your examples really helped me get a grasp of how the camera see things compared to what we see. The help I get from the forum members is priceless. I got the book by Brian Petterson the other day but have found myself reading this forum more. Thanks again.
 
Thanks for your help. I have come across situations where the subject is in shade but the surrounding area is bright. The camera gets it wrong and the subject is too dark. Today I took what you said and tried to spot the subject in order to get it exposed correctly (subject). It seemed to work from the camera view but I haven't seen them on computer yet. I'm not 100% sure if I used your advise correctly but I'm hoping...
 
I also check the histogram if i suspect my meter reading is wrong, Depending on what your shooting ofc check if highlights are badly clipping the left for underexposed and right if its its overexposed, Idealy you want a good range of midtones with not too much clipping eigher side.
 
Hotshots said:
I also check the histogram if i suspect my meter reading is wrong, Depending on what your shooting ofc check if highlights are badly clipping the left for underexposed and right if its its overexposed, Idealy you want a good range of midtones with not too much clipping eigher side.
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I always check my histogram. Sometimes the exposure is correct but the vertical part of the histogram is very high. I read that this is not an issue but in bright sunlight I dont care for the results. In this case (yesterday) I made an adjustment to the u.v. filter and was able to cut those spikes down a bit. I have no idea if this is correct but it seemed to help. The problem is I can't compare results in post edit because that adjustment does not show. In other words, I dont know which pic I made the adjustment and which pic I didn't.
 
shaylou said:
I always check my histogram. Sometimes the exposure is correct but the vertical part of the histogram is very high. I read that this is not an issue but in bright sunlight I dont care for the results. In this case (yesterday) I made an adjustment to the u.v. filter and was able to cut those spikes down a bit. I have no idea if this is correct but it seemed to help. The problem is I can't compare results in post edit because that adjustment does not show. In other words, I dont know which pic I made the adjustment and which pic I didn't.
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When you say you made an adjustment, what did you do? A uv filter should have no effect on the image whatsoever apart from inducing flare and softening images but that's a whole new topic.
 
TCR4x4 said:
When you say you made an adjustment, what did you do? A uv filter should have no effect on the image whatsoever apart from inducing flare and softening images but that's a whole new topic.
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You can control the amount of filtering it does by turning it on the lens. Like a window shutter, turn it half way and you get half as much filtering. You can see a difference when you adjust it. For example, when you are looking at water and there is a big reflection you can turn the filter to its darkest spot and it will cut out all the reflection off the water. This also (seems) to cut down on the amount of light entering the lens. I'm not 100% sure on that part.
 
shaylou said:
You can control the amount of filtering it does by turning it on the lens. Like a window shutter, turn it half way and you get half as much filtering. You can see a difference when you adjust it. For example, when you are looking at water and there is a big reflection you can turn the filter to its darkest spot and it will cut out all the reflection off the water. This also (seems) to cut down on the amount of light entering the lens. I'm not 100% sure on that part.
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That sounds like a polarising filter (though your description of how it works isn't accurate).

A UV is perfectly clear and only cuts invisible ultra-violet light. A bit pointless really, as there is already a UV filter over the sensor.
 
shaylou said:
You can control the amount of filtering it does by turning it on the lens. Like a window shutter, turn it half way and you get half as much filtering. You can see a difference when you adjust it. For example, when you are looking at water and there is a big reflection you can turn the filter to its darkest spot and it will cut out all the reflection off the water. This also (seems) to cut down on the amount of light entering the lens. I'm not 100% sure on that part.
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That's a polariser not a UV. It will cut up to 2 stops of light depending on the angle to the light.
 
TCR4x4 said:
That's a polariser not a UV. It will cut up to 2 stops of light depending on the angle to the light.
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Yes, but that's not quite accurate.

Depending on the type of polariser, it will cut the overall exposure by up to two stops, then the polarised components will be reduced further. If they are strongly polarised and the angles are right, that will be several stops more.
 
The general consenus on Polarisers is they will cut up to two stops of light over the entire frame at its most effective. Yes its quite possible certain areas will be more, but a polariser isnt measured that way and doesnt really need to be, it just complicates matters for people who are trying to get thier head round the initial concept.
 
TCR4x4 said:
The general consenus on Polarisers is they will cut up to two stops of light over the entire frame at its most effective. Yes its quite possible certain areas will be more, but a polariser isnt measured that way and doesnt really need to be, it just complicates matters for people who are trying to get thier head round the initial concept.
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I beg to differ, as to skate over how polarisers darken selective areas of the image more than others is to miss the whole point of using them. If they didn't work like that, you might as well use a straight ND, but what would be the benefit of that?
 
Im pretty sure you can ask anyone here, "what does a polariser do?" and they will likely say, darkens blue skies, cuts reflections and glare and makes clouds pop.

I very much doubt anyone will say it will darken X amount of an area buy such and such and darken Y amount of an area by such and such.
You are trying to over complicate things. This is the Basics section after all.
 
Actually the detailed explanation was very useful. I was having trouble getting enough light and was asking questions in another thread about it. The one thing that I didn't factor in was the fact that I just added a polarizing filter. I went without it and problem solved. It was cutting down the light to where it was a problem for me. Thanks for the tip and please always include as much as possible when helping us newbies...
 
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