Blur motion/freeze motion shutter speeds

<p>I would like to know whether some of you folks experimented with shutter speeds to achieve certain results in blur motion/shutter speed. For example</p>

<ul>

<li>which shutter speed to blur a person walking?</li>

<li>which shutter speed to blur a person running?</li>

<li>which shutter speed to freeze a person walking but blur the faster moving feet/legs?</li>

<li>which shutter speed to slightly blur a moving car in town (30mph or so).</li>

<li>etc.</li>

</ul>

<p>I would like to obtain certain effects, but I never recorded the shutter speeds I used.<br>

Thank you.</p>

<p>First of all, it matters whether the subject is coming directly toward you (or going away, of course), moving at a diagonal to you, or moving at right angles to the film plane.</p>

<p>Here is a chart* for shutter speeds from Aaron Sussman's <em>The Amateur Photographer's Handbook</em> (7th ed., 1965, Thomas Y. Crowell, New York) p. 210.<br>

These are shutter speeds for stopping motion, so longer speeds will allow blurring progressively of all or a faster moving part of the image.<br>

A formula for calculating the figure from speed and so on is given on the previous page, but this should do.</p>

<p>_________<br>

*A=toward you, B=diagonal movement, C=right-angle movement, as the arrows show.</p><div></div>

<p>Luca,<br>

I do alot of Aviation Airshow photography. Blur of the Propeller is desirable most of the time.<br>

I just wanted to add . . . The difference in shutter speed from freezing the action to blurring the motion usually is not very much. It's easy to over do it!<br>

My experience with the Propeller's can be as little as 200sec. to 250th, or 250sec. to 320th.</p>

<ol>

<li>1/25</li>

<li>1/50</li>

<li>Never tried</li>

<li>1/50 I suppose. My friend used that for pan blur with good results so should do fine without panning.</li>

</ol>

<p>It all depends on how much blur you want. The best thing to do is to experiment, if you're shooting digitally. Failing that, just figure out how long a blur you want and the speed of the object you want blurred, and calculate the shutter speed from there. For instance, if a car travels 30 ft in a second, and if you want a 3 ft lot blur, then you'll need to shoot at 3/30 = 1/10 sec, irrespective of the focal length of your lens.</p>

<p>Regarding your #3, you technically can't freeze anything that's moving across the frame, no matter what your shutter speed. When a person is walking, one foot will be stationary, one foot will be moving forward at a certain speed, and the body will be moving half that speed, give or take. So the blur on the body will be about half that of the blur on the moving foot. If you pan the camera to follow the body, then you might get a nice blur on both feet (about the same degree of blur) and "freeze" the body. You can also play with lighting -- perhaps a color-corrected hot light on the feet and a flash on the body, blended between.</p>

<p>Anyway, the answers to your questions depend on how much blur you want.</p>

<p>Thank you all very much!<br>

It is all very useful input.<br>

Thanks.<br>

L.</p>