Now you know what aperture is, it is time to look at another component of controlling the light in your camera; shutter speed.
Shutter speed
The shutter speed controls how long the light enters through the aperture. For photographing food, the shutter speed – provided you use a tripod – is not very important. Food is static (well usually it is anyway) and waits patiently for you to take a picture of it.
Moving elements
Only when you add moving elements, such as a chef in action or a child eating an ice cream, does shutter speed come into play again. The basic principle is that your shutter speed should be short enough to produce a sharp photo. The length of the shutter speed depends on a number of factors.
Handheld or with a tripod?
You can recognize the shutter speed by a series of numbers that look like, for example, 1/60s, 1/125s or 1″. The latter means your shutter speed is 1 second. Note that the shutter speed in your camera screen is often indicated as 60 instead of 1/60s. But how long can you shoot handheld without getting a blurry photo? As a rule of thumb, your shutter speed should be shorter or equal to the zoom distance of your lens. That sounds more complicated than it is.
Say you have a telephoto lens of 100mm on your camera or you have set your zoom lens to that distance. So that means your shutter speed should be at least 1/100s or shorter. And shorter in this case is 1/125s, 1/250s or higher. Longer is 1/30s, and so on. It is also important to consider your own limitations. Some people simply suffer more from shaky hands. If you are shooting indoors during the day, use a tripod. You can then build up your composition more calmly and it does not matter so much whether your shutter speed is 1/60 or 1/10s. Your tripod will absorb the vibrations.
Hands in the frame? Then pay extra attention to your shutter speed!
When photographing food, you will not use shutter speed priority (usually marked Tv or S on your camera). Manual or aperture priority is a more logical choice. Shutter speed does become important the moment you want to capture movement like the sugar grains falling over the strawberries here.
By using a relatively slow shutter speed, 1/15s, the sugar grains fall like a small “shower” down over the strawberries giving you the illusion of speed. The shutter speed is still just short enough to capture the jumping grains at the back as well. With a short shutter speed, you freeze the movement.
The sugar remains suspended in the air, so to speak. With a slow shutter speed, you get some blur in the sugar. This can be nice, because it also suggests movement. Think, for example, of the photos taken at the Zandvoort circuit; a short shutter speed makes the car appear to be standing still, while a slow shutter speed produces a much more dynamic image.
