Project Photographing movement. Exercise 4. Shutter speeds, camera with manual option

Photographing movement, have never really thought about the concept of this, and have struggled to produce a series of images that I feel are worthy of the effort I have put in to try and understand this fully, with the full knowledge of how I achieved these final photographs.  

In practise I have set myself up on the roadside, and taken photographs of passing motorists, difficulties arose there as the driver would slow down to wave and greet me, making it very difficult to capture a car in motion.

 I attempted birds in flight and also a swimmer in the pool, these were reasonable attempts, but felt I had no control as I did not fully understand the concept.  

Fig 1a           

Seagull in motion

I knew I would have to take my photographs in the home to enable me to practise till I was happy with the result, hence I decided to photograph an individual 'child's garden windmill'.  Not very original I know,  now I had set myself the next challenge, where do I purchase a windmill here in Oman????? the one and only toy shop in Oman, 2 hours away...Toys are us...no windmills here or in the Dubai branch....will keep looking will succeed and I did, managed to stumble across a huge pile of them, scattered over the floor in a small petrol station on the highway to Muscat, there I made my purchase.   These windmills are not designed for the garden, the clear straw which is the stem of  windmill contains addative loaded, small hard sweets. Both the straw and the sweets melted when placed in sun and when placed beside a working hairdryer.  I changed the plastic straw for coloured bears grass which was stronger and heat resistant...4 were laid on one side as spares.

The brief for this exercise, required a setting and background that was simple, which would cause no distractions, so I decided to set up my 'windmill' against single coloured background which was a sheet of card, taped to a wall. The windmill is brightly coloured therefore I chose a white background.  

Equipment used

Nikon D7000

Nikon 18 - 105mm lens

Tripod

No Flash, natural lighting through windows.

Hairdryer to create movement

Oasis block (flower arranging) to support windmill

Manual setting 
Focal length 98mm

Fig. 1    1/5 sec    f/18.0

Fig. 2     1/10 sec    f/14.0

   

Fig.3     1/20 sec    f/10.0

Fig.4     1/30 sec    f/6.3

Fig.5     1/50 sec    f/6.3

Fig. 6    1/80 sec    f/5.6

Before taking these shots, I focused on the windmill before turning on the hairdryer, and then refrained from using auto focus. 

It is very clear to see in the 6 images above the effect of the shutter speed on the moving object.  

Where I have used a slow shutter speed, it is not possible to see the petals of the windmill, giving the effect of blur.

Where the shutter speed increases, the petals become more obvious, having been frozen in action.

My thoughts on this exercise. 

• In a setting with low light, the ISO had to be raised, less light was needed, enabling me to use a smaller aperture, and a faster shutter speed.
• A tripod is very useful when shooting with a slow shutter speed
• A fast shutter speed is required to freeze motion
• A slower shutter speed blurs movement, and creates a sense of motion
• Selecting the correct shutter speed and aperture combination along with ISO setting to achieve the correct exposure.

Overall I think that this exercise was relatively successful and I have demonstrated that I have understood the effect of  varying shutter speeds on a moving object.