Shutter Speed Practice:

To investigate and practice using shutter speed, I chose to shoot three videos at different shutter speeds (1/30, 1/50 and 1/60). When it came to shooting the videos, however, I decided that it would be more effective to show a  very high shutter speed as it would be a clearer exploration of the effect of shutter speed on the quality and visuals of the video. This video is shot at shutter speed 1/30, meaning that there is a slight motion blur and the aperture I used had o be very low so as to not over expose it. 

To achieve this effect, I chose to use the following camera settings: ISO 200, shutter speed 1/30, 25fps, and aperture 5.8ff. When shooting at such a slow shutter speed, I found that it was difficult to make out the detail of the water and the over look of the video was quite dull. 

This scene shot highlights what I mean and shows that the slow shutter speed increases the amount of motion blur and makes the water appear as though it is a smooth continuous stream. I do feel that my choice to shoot a garden hose/water was good though as it means that the full effect of shutter speed on film is evident. 

For this video, I shot at shutter speed 1/50 so that the visual appearance of the water would be closer to that which humans see with there naked eye. The shutter speed should always be double the number of the frame rate, for example: if you're shooting at a frame rate of 25fps you should shoot with a shutter speed of 1/50. This means that although the appearance of the water is still smooth, it is what people see with their natural eye - this is also the type of frame rate to shutter speed ratio that most directors and film makers use.

To achieve this effect, I used the following settings: ISO 200, shutter speed 1/50, 25fps, and aperture 7. Because I was shooting at a higher shutter speed, I had to change the aperture to allow less light into the camera and prevent it getting over exposed, however, this meant that I had to refocus the camera.

This scene shot shows that the higher the shutter speed, the less motion blur there is. It also shows the trouble I had when it came to refocusing the camera, however, that could also just be a little amount of motion blur from the garden hose moving as it was hand held.

This final video shows the effect of the shutter speed on the footage at both 1/100 and 1/400. The stream of water presented at this shutter speed shows that there is no visible continuous stream and instead the individual droplets of water and details are clearer. 

To achieve these effects, I first set my camera to: ISO 200, shutter speed 1/100, 25fps, and aperture 10; and then to: ISO 200, shutter speed 1/400, 25fps, and aperture 10. As these two shutter speed are quite high, the details are very clear but the exposure also made the lighting a great deal crisper, meaning that it looks more like a photograph or unreal that the other two videos do. Because of this unnatural looking appearance that shooting at such a high shutter speed gives, directors and film makers usually elect not to use it.

These two screen shots show how much detail is visible at high shutter speeds - because there is such a high shutter speed there is very little motion blur. I found that it was a great deal more difficult to focus the camera when using these high shutter speeds because I had to focus on the individual droplets rather than on a constant stream like with the slower shutter speeds.