Shutter Speed

Dragon Boat Race

Notice at shutter 1/640sec (first pix), the capture is sharper. Even the water splashing is fuller and you can see the paddle is whole.

But when the shutter is opened longer at 1/25sec or 1/13sec, you can see how the sea is "blended" more and the paddles are almost "missing". In this technique, the motion blur is on purpose. The idea is to demostrate the speed of the paddlers - so fast you cannot even see their arms. This style also encompasses the notion of camera panning. As the boat moves, the camera moves in sync with the boat; hence, you see the words on the boat is kept sharp. This could even be an advertisment for DBS Bank. lol.

iLight Festival

Here the camera has to be on a tripod. The slow shutter of 1/40sec helps to capture low light and also absorbing more of the light rays to make them fuller.

NDP Fireworks

The shutter was kept opened for 5sec here to capture the burst of the fireworks. Without a tripod, everything would have been blur.

I deliberately went to NDP late so I could sit at the back row of the allocated section. Just before the fireworks, I climbed over my seat to stand with the official photographers behind, quickly set up my tripod and started shooting.

Freezing Frame

The above are examples of slow shutters; on the other end of the spectrum, we have the fast action shots. Here's my catcher daughter catching the ball in softball. The camera was set at 1/1000sec to freeze the ball in motion.

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