High Speed Photography

One of my personal favorite aspects of photography is high speed photography. Being able to freeze motion is something I’ve always loved. To me nothing looks better than a super sharp image that shows exactly what was going on in the moment.

However, before you can do this, you’re going to want to learn a little bit about what your camera is capable of and what your settings should be. You’re going to need laser focus, and potentially the right lighting to really achieve a perfectly crisp photo.

Lighting

Let’s start with the right lighting to make this the easiest for learning. Avoid shooting in a dark, shadowy place unless you have a camera that shoots exceptionally well in low light situations. Bright even light is going to be your best friend for high shutter photography. It will allow you to get the camera settings perfect for a properly exposed image with no motion blur.

Camera Settings

Camera settings are the most important. I try to keep my shutter speed as high as possible while making sure my image is properly exposed. I recommend a shutter speed of at least 1/500 to freeze the image sharply.

The next thing I usually adjust for is F-stop. This is important for how you want your image to be focused. Do you want a shallow depth of field? Or are you looking for the entire image to be perfectly in focus? I enjoy just my subject sharp and in focus with the background blurred. This is entirely up to you, don’t let my creative opinion sway you.

Depending on your lighting, you may want to keep your F-stop lower, somewhere around f2-f5. Your lens may not let you to get that wide open, so you will need to stay within your limits.

The last thing I adjust is my ISO setting. This will digitally brighten your image. The higher you go, the more noise will be added to your photo, so I recommend keeping this as low as possible. Ideally, try not to go above ISO 800. This will allow you the most flexibility for editing your images in Post Processing without ending up with a grainy image.

You will have to play with these settings to figure out the sweet spot that works for you. These settings aren’t set in stone, so the sky is the limit. These give you a starting point for the best results. Don’t forget to enjoy what your doing and keep trying different settings for different results.

Grab your camera and get out and create. You can only improve if you keep practicing. Look for some of my examples of high shutter speed photography or take a look through my Portfolio for more examples and ideas on what you could shoot.