Photography: Shutter Priority

Finally getting caught up to where I actually stand as far as the photography class is progressing! This week, our assignment was to stop action by taking pictures with a fast shutter speed in Shutter priority mode ("S" on my Nikon). This is useful when taking sports pictures, for example, or pictures of kids or animals doing activities like running or playing. However, sometimes you don't want the action completely stopped--you might want a bit of blur to portray the motion so something doesn't look like it's just sitting. BUT for this week's purposes, our instructor wanted action STOPPED. You achieve this by first changing the focus mode to AF-C, the shooting mode to continuous (so you can hold down the shutter release and get several pictures in a row), and the AF-Area mode to dynamic area. Again, on a better camera than mine, this would give me multiple focus zones so most pictures would stay in focus without much work on my part, but mine only has three focus zones, so I have to have one of them in the right place to get the right photo.

In Shutter priority, the instructor suggested that 1/250 shutter speed was a good starting point, but 1/500 or higher would consistently stop most action. For taking pictures outside, ISO could be somewhere between 100-400, but would have to go higher inside, and then we would really struggle with balancing the ISO with the shutter speed and achieving the picture we wanted. Well, I avoided that problem by taking all of mine outside in daylight! Here are the pictures I submitted:

Noah on the teeter-totter
1/250s, f/11, ISO 200

Audrey in her swing
1/250s, f/11, ISO 200

Noah shoots... and scores!
1/125s, f/7.1, ISO 200

Addie the psycho dog, as "stopped" as I can get her!
1/250s, f/11, ISO 200

My fourth class is tonight, followed by a softball playoff game (don't be impressed... everyone makes the playoffs). I'll keep posting!