Scandinavian Motion by My S95

Based on what I've learned, I’ll share how I used different shutter speeds to capture motion with my Canon S95. There are a few difficult issues I faced along the way but thankfully there have been enough people doing this that most of the techniques can be referred easily. In motion photography, it's always the easiest to freeze everything while retaining the motion you want to capture. Just simply switch to Program Mode and make sure that your subject is well in focus (the exposure will be short). A good example would be photographing people doing certain action.

A brave climber at Kulturhuset Stockholm. (1/60sec)

Winter ice-skating at Kungsträdgården. (1/30sec)

There are times when you need to keep the scene in focus, but have the motion objects blurred. One simple way to do this is to focus your camera on the scene (background) and ignore the moving subject. The shutter speed that you use plays a key role in capturing motion in your image. A slower shutter speed will blur the moving object effectively, so make sure that you have a long exposure to allow the light to blur the motion. 

To achieve this, you would need to use a tripod so that your camera remains steady. When you slow your shutter speed to blur elements in your image, there’s a chance that too much light will enter and overexpose your image. Thus, it is important to check the aperture on your camera and review the setting of your ISO. One method to remember is to shoot in Manual Mode and use a small aperture (f8 if possible) and a low ISO. I often use this technique in night-time photographs with car headlights cutting through the image.

The crowd at Hakaniemi Market Hall Helsinki. (f8 and 3.2sec)

Traffic along Kungsgatan. (f8 and 5sec)

Sometimes, you might want to try to blur everything in the scene by using a long exposure while moving your camera. Blurring everything produces the best results when the scene offers bright, contrasting colors or varying shades on the grayscale. In most cases, capturing motion in this manner is done purely for artistic purposes. Another technique in capturing motion is the panning method which I'll cover next time.