Motion Control

Remember, most people cannot hold a camera still for an in focus shot for anything slower than 1/60th of a second. Images usually come out blurry when shooting at 1/30th, 1/15th or 1/8th. (In your camera, it probably just says 30, 15 or 8 etc. under shutter speed... it's usually not written in fractions in your camera)

But when shooting at 1/60th of a second, the image will only be in focus if the subject is not moving. Once the subject moves, you need a quicker exposure....perhaps 1/250th of a second or faster.

If you're outside during the day roaming around and want to make sure there is no motion blur in your pictures, the "S" setting is a good one to choose (Shutter Priority). Set the shutter to 1/250 and the camera will choose the aperture for you.

One thing to consider, your flash will not fire when shooting faster than 1/250th (for most cameras). For example, if you're in Manual mode and shooting at 1/1000 of a second, you will not be able to add flash.

Try shooting at a slower exposure (try 1/30, 1/60 and 1/125) and “pan” or “track” the moving object. The goal is the get the object in focus and the background to show motion. You can use a tripod to get really good at this!
Panning can achieve looks like this:



Here is a handout with some exercises to practice motion control:


For something like this, you would have to use a tripod at perhaps 1/15 second. The tripod would freeze the rock (which is still) and show the motion of the moving water:



Controlling Motion blur in LOW LIGHT situations:
At night, or in low light situations, if you shoot with a slow shutter speed (like 1/15 or 1/30) and no flash,the picture will be blurry:

If you put your camera on Auto, most likely, your camera will use the flash but choose a shutter speed too fast to capture the ambient light in the background (perhaps 1/125 or so). The flash lights up your subject but not the background:

To capture the lights in the background and your subjects in focus, you must choose a slower shutter speed, like 1/15 or 1/30 and use flash. The flash guarantees your subjects will not be blurry. Try using "S" shutter priority mode (and choosing 1/15 or 1/30) and hold your camera very still!: