For those who have no clue about photography, you must be wondering why the word ‘shutter bug’ is often used interchangeably with camera. Well, this is because a camera has a shutter which, along with the lens opening or the aperture, controls the exposure of your film or censors. If you are a budding photographer, then knowing a little about shutter speed and the shutter mechanism can help you achieve higher impact photographs.

If you have ever handled a camera, then you must have seen certain readings like 1 sec, 1/30 sec, 1/125 sec and so on. These are the shutter speed readings. After setting your frame and aperture, when you press the click button, that’s when your lens aperture opens to the settings that you have set, and the shutter also opens to the set time, in order to expose the film to light.

Photography is all about writing with light, and the shutter is one element that controls the amount of light entering your film plane. A shutter opens in an acyclic manner, as described in the picture. Every position comes twice, once while opening the shutter and a second time while closing.

But a shutter doesn’t open completely all the time. At speeds higher than 1/60 sec, that is to say 1/250 sec or 1/1000 sec, the shutter only opens for a split second. Hence, it is necessary that at such shutter speeds, lighting conditions should be constant and aperture should be high so as to expose the film or sensor properly. Fortunately, modern cameras, such as the Nikon D3, make adjusting the aperture extraordinarily simple. When the speeds are less than 1/60 sec, such as 1/30 sec, or 1 sec, the shutter remains open for a significant time due to the slow speed. Accordingly, it is necessary to keep the aperture low. 1/60 sec is a critical speed for flash, as flash is an instantaneous light source. Therefore, it is necessary that the shutter be open completely for proper exposure when the light is flash, and, as mentioned above, the shutter opens completely only at speeds below 1/60 sec.